Once other economic objectives are subordinated to the unifying goal of pummelling poverty, and once SA’s key misconceptions and disconnects are overcome through objective analysis, the key policy insights become apparent:

• Government policy making must pivot decisively to cease blocking export growth.
  • Neither government bureaucrats nor commentators must seek to answer the question: Which South Africans will sell what to whom?
    • Only the creative efforts of entrepreneurs can provide such answers.
  • Government must reverse policies which undermine the nation’s competitiveness and global integration.
• BEE policies have been excessively indulged as they are packaged to provoke political popularity with the majority of the population who are poor.
  • Yet unaffordable indulgence of politically popular but economically destructive redistribution-focused policies is central to SA’s persistently pervasive poverty.

As meaningfully dismantling BEE is a political non-starter, the grand compromise which must be struck is to provide broad regulatory relief for export-focused initiatives.