The land madness.

Our most divisive issue is also the most misunderstood and incoherent.

As a young boy, I would often take long, lonely walks in the veld of the Free State Gold Fields: barefoot with hardened soles impervious to sharp pebbles and blades of dry grass; but still intuitively sensitive to the energy and magnetism of the virgin earth; the large promise of nature; flat and wide open spaces; of freedom and the mystery of what lay beyond the horizon. My fantasy would often expand to owning all of what I could see, giving me a sense of power, status, security and wealth.

Those two dimensions: the nomad and the settler; the romantic and the mercenary; and the communal and the territorial, are powerful primal forces in our relationship with land. They are often contradictory. They are also, for the most part, mythical, emotive and irrational. Yet they strongly influence our discourse about land, plunging it into an incoherent mess. A greater, and more explosive dimension is added by a wider territorial framing, embellished by the concepts of people and their homeland; tribe and territory; volk and vaderland; a place and a home; of flags and anthems; ancestry; culture; tradition; belonging and connection. These are strong enough to awaken the warrior in pacifist chests, adding volume to calls to action, and creating a powerful drug to be peddled by populist politicians.

It is small wonder that our debate about land, perhaps the most divisive issue in South Africa today, is trapped in an echo chamber of contradictions, conflicting statistics, confusing rhetoric and ideological warfare. For this column I’m not going to confront the issue some have raised that the proposed amendments to the Constitution have a much broader and more invidious implication of expropriation of all property: from your child’s favourite teddy bear to intellectual property. I don’t think that it is remotely possible and will bring down the entire economic system. In any case, the government is quite welcome to nationalise my tortured imperfect thoughts.

Our understanding and hence our whole policy approach to land transformation could be way off the mark. It has mostly been distilled into two ill-fitting themes – transfer of agricultural land and transfer of wealth. The first dominates the discourse and is perhaps the most incoherent of all, based not only on poor statistics and false assumptions around who owns what (see this article by the IRR challenging the 4% black land ownership), but also whether agricultural land is the real issue at all among the impoverished and disadvantaged.

All empirical evidence shows differently. Most of the land invasions and unrest have not been on farms, but in urban areas – people wanting homes and escaping cramped, poorly serviced living conditions in exploding townships and settlements. Their inability to achieve that is far more inflammable, pitching red berets against Red Ants in a fervour fuelled by anger, hopelessness and despair. I’m convinced that addressing that in land restitution will defuse most of the emotions far quicker and easier than the complicated transfer of farms.

It also makes much more sense in the distribution of wealth. Far more wealth is tied up in residential property than in farming or commerce and industry. It gives individuals an asset foothold and promotes inclusiveness in the economy. But that in turn needs a clear approach to private ownership and title. The Freedom Front Plus may have valid concerns that the government seems intent on expropriating land for the state and not for private ownership. The latter would certainly be at odds with the EFF’s “socialist” stance, which then implies opportunism on their part in using individual aspirations for home ownership to enrich the state. Surprising to many perhaps, blacks own far more first homes in South Africa than whites. According to an observation by economist Mike Schussler recently posted on social media: “Africans own 7,66 million houses (1st houses only) and Whites own 730 000. In total 56% of the value of 1st houses belong to Africans. Only 33% belong to the white population group”.

One cannot be dogmatic about state and communal ownership versus private ownership. There are too many permutations of ownership in different countries that invalidate ideological prescription. What is useful, however, is to understand that state ownership (ownership by all) is equal to ownership by none (not one.) It is then also imperative to have a clear understanding that government in its various forms: national, local and SOE’s are not the state per se but agents of the state. In that they cannot represent “all” and indeed too often act on behalf of a few, including themselves.

Compounding the entire discourse further and much deeper, is the macroeconomic positioning of land as a “factor of production” next to labour and capital. It’s perhaps the most essential perspective of all, but it is rife with complexity.  Land for commercial and industrial use, for example, is more appropriately classified as capital as a factor of production. Land has virtually disappeared from economic theory although undeniably still impacts on GDP. (See article here.) The constantly changing structure of macroeconomics through technology and human evolvement has meant that the role of land as a factor of production has become highly flexible and incalculable; in some cases even irrelevant. A reflection of this is the many small countries with little or no natural resources that are highly prosperous; and conversely, the many countries with abundant land and minerals, who are relatively poor.

I am aware that this article may well have raised far more questions than answers. Perhaps that’s the point. But what should be obvious to all is that our discourse on land is juvenile, irrational and tragically behind the times. It is anchored in falsehoods, flawed assumptions, and volatile emotionalism.

What madness would allow it to tear us apart?

Stakeholder capitalism.

Can South Africa create a fresh economic approach to growth and inclusivity?

Part of the enthusiasm of a “new dawn” in South Africa is the belief that a closer partnership can be established between labour, capital and state. It has a firm Ramaphosa stamp to it and is key to the President’s desire to galvanise the nation on a different business friendly path of cohesion, inclusivity and growth.

In this he has put renewed emphasis on the CEO initiative and the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) as “unique institutions” in bringing the three economic estates together and that are envied by many other nations. Sceptics could argue that most nations do not need them and have long since evolved beyond 19^th century ideological divisions captured in theories of “capitalism” and “socialism” that still mesmerise many in this country. (See article: An age of economic soul searching here.)

Only a political or organisational theorist could come up with a term such as “stakeholder capitalism”. It’s counter-intuitive to the very definition of capitalism and borders on being an oxymoron. The classic definition of capitalism assumes the supremacy of ownership over “stakeholders”. Perhaps it is time to move beyond the debilitating semantics of capitalism and socialism. There are so many permutations of both in different settings that neither exists in its pure form. Yet the words themselves ignite knee jerk responses based on stubbornly nurtured prejudices.

Associative meaning has a subtle way of creating unshakeable intuitive prejudice – to the extent that many baby names are banned in some countries with some nations even having a pre-approved list. Have the words “capitalism and socialism” not reached that point? And perhaps with them other concoctions such as “communism”, “neo-liberalism”, “social capitalism” and “stakeholder capitalism”. There is, of course, much value in the inclusive stakeholder approach, but to achieve that, one simply has to let go of much of what is conventional capitalism – including the purpose of business and the accounting formats -- in favour of a common purpose; common fate approach.

It will also need a clearer distinction between capitalism and other concepts such as “free enterprise”, “free markets” and even notions such as innovation, entrepreneurship, and prosperity. Without that distinction, those laudable, more palatable and easily defended concepts become tainted with many negative connotations associated with the name of capitalism. It is said to be in a crisis. Its face has been called “unacceptable”. It’s been slandered as “ugly”. It’s even been demeaned as having no face at all. It solicits ill-informed responses from populist leaders that inflame without enlightening: much heat without light. Included in its defence, and entrenched by the word itself, are questionable assumptions about what accounts for its success.

The first is that human beings are singularly driven by their immediate material self-interest and profit. That is a silly generalisation. Human beings are far more complex than that. Free enterprise supports a different understanding, as pronounced by Adam Smith (See here). Without a good measure of benevolent behaviour we attract the very nemesis of free enterprise: more rules, regulations, laws, government controls and even coerced empathy in the form of a system mildly called socialism. Which prompts me to burst another assumption bubble: because homo economicus is a social being rather than simply a functional entity in one or other construct, it does not support the radical socialist argument of ownership by all – or ownership by none.

Interestingly, while capitalism is blindly married to the material self-gain driver, free enterprise does not concern itself with motive: as long as it is led by the fundamental rule that wealth is the result of creating something of tangible value for others or being useful to fellow human beings. In that it has a fundamental benevolent underpinning. Free enterprise is remarkably resilient and accommodating, and does not attract or even need the fanatical posturing that advocates either for or against often adopt in an understandable blind prejudice. Even in its aversion to socialism and the latter’s implication of bigger government at the expense of private initiative, it can accommodate permutations that fly in the teeth of many arguments.

Capitalism vehemently champions my old pet objection: the profit motive and profit maximisation as the ultimate driver of success and prosperity. I do not intend repeating my challenge to this claim as simply being false. What is worth repeating is the outrageous and demeaning assumption it makes about the motives of entrepreneurial giants who have made a marked and lasting impact on humankind. The social miracle of free enterprise is its ability to forge cohesion and a sense of common purpose between stakeholders. That obviously implies not trying to rank one above the other, and certainly not encouraging the exploitation by one of the other.

That is implied in the name “capitalism” itself. It assumes capital supremacy in all things, and the pursuit of its formation and growth is a precursor to all kinds of wonderful stuff. Free enterprise accommodates, indeed proposes, a different view: that enterprise leads and capital follows. Capital is indeed a critical enabler. But so are skills and labour, and government services and infra-structure. But the ultimate enabler is demand.

The results of a narrow and exclusive view on the role of capital formation have been devastating. We have not seen significant capital formation in organic growth through multiples of mom-and- pop ventures, small and medium enterprise growth, and growing middle classes; but in mergers, acquisitions, financial services, and financial or property assets. Control of capital, not necessarily ownership, has increasingly been concentrated in the hands of the few, who in turn, some have argued, have “captured” many free enterprise activities, parts of government, and the most invidious of all: banking and money creation.

The term “monopoly capital” may have no logical basis, but it’s simply a reflection of trying to find, or even create a demon that “will be confronted” by voting for some populist megalomaniac. The concentration of control over the means of production, either by government or a few plutocrats is the antithesis of free enterprise. The term itself is a P.R nightmare. Even in its origins it was demonised by novelist Thackeray to represent an exploitive landlord. It never featured in Adam Smith’s writings, but was repeatedly used by Karl Marx. So it was coined by its enemies.

I have no doubt opened the gates of wrath of many readers. And that is the essence of the problem, emotive responses linked to a name. You will unlikely find these observations in economic textbooks. The reason is simple: for the most part I have been dealing with perceptions, which most textbooks and academics ignore. At the same time they fail to recognise a fundamental truth: that perceptions create reality.

The one thing that globalisation has shown is that there is no one-size-fits all best economic system. All countries have their own uniqueness that often defy ideological prescriptions. Each has to evolve in its own way.

If we want to create something fresh, let’s not muddy it with dogmatic assumptions.