07 JANUARY 2016 – 07:00

SHAWN Hagedorn’s attempt to explain the current discourse in SA politics on a thesis of “value-based politics” Life of the party and the hangover, January 5) is incorrect and mitigates the real crisis that the current ANC leadership has endowed to its citizens for 2016.

Mr Hagedorn’s prescription that the ANC-led government can turn the ship around by merely reorientating its calculus to one of “objective analysis” is utopian to say the least. What we are dealing with is an ANC regime post-Nelson Mandela that is unconstrained by the legacy of the constitutional settlement — the common view among most members of the ANC is that Mandela sold out.

What the ANC embarked on, driven by Thabo Mbeki, is a schizophrenic economic policy devoid of any market reality. Black economic empowerment has created massive transactional costs to the country’s competitive position, and the policy of Africanisation of the public service and key state enterprises has created havoc with service delivery. The latter may have achieved better results if the post-1994 revolution in education had materialised.

The current regime under President Jacob Zuma has completed the path laid down by Mr Mbeki by throwing out any pretence of constitutionality.

The final imperfection of Mr Hagedorn’s analysis is to draw on the experiences of Asia. What Asia embarked on post-1945 was a process of emulating the American economic model wholeheartedly, and integrating their economies to supply the massive North American markets. We sit in an embarrassing situation in which US President Barack Obama is about to pull the plug on a critical trade deal.

The ANC’s unwillingness to get rid of its anti-American phobia will doom any efforts in moving economic policy in the right direction. The problem with the current regime is not its inability to define the narrative of the past, but its inability to define a narrative of the future that includes all races in this country.

What Mr Hagedorn should realise is that any pronouncements that this government and the ruling party will now make on policy direction will be dismissed until there is a change in leadership.

John Catsicas
Sandton

Published in Business Day