Now is the time, and South Africa the place, to understand why Africa has been such an economic laggard. Scars remain from nearly all of Africa having been aggressively colonised. Greed mixed with racism to crush long-standing social structures while looting resource wealth.  However, many of today’s most dynamic economies are former colonies. Their impressive…Continue reading Why does Africa continue to underperform?

SA’s approach to energy generation is as out of sync with evolving global norms as the previous regime’s race-based voting criteria were. Localisation policies preclude our integration into the global economy, which is required to increase job creation while boosting our capacity to repay the enormous debt load necessary to transition towards cleaner energy sources.…Continue reading Energy, poverty and gold SA’s approach to energy generation is as out of sync with evolving global norms

Is social justice to economic development what physics is to engineering? No. Social justice mixes ethics with believing in a false utopia. Economic development, like physics and engineering, is science-based. Historians like Yuval Noah Hariri and Tom Holland support the view that a diverse  society needs a shared set of faith-based beliefs to bond around…Continue reading The next twist in SA’s social justice saga

Given today’s fluxing geopolitics and economics, the value of criticising Western policies must be balanced with better appreciating their benefits. For professors of cultural studies and many political parties in Africa, anti-colonialism fuels their political narratives. For people focused on solutions and progress, the colonial era’s relevance has been superseded by subsequent developments. For instance,…Continue reading The US and the West … China and Africa

Our entrenched youth unemployment crisis is the biggest risk to SA Rampant inflation, rickety infrastructure and sovereign debt defaults are severe yet common and manageable risks. Our entrenched youth unemployment crisis is starkly more unusual and menacing. If it persists through 2029 it will probably provoke an entrenched form of “failed state” status through discarding…Continue reading Unemployment, exporting and politics

Stopping the fighting might soon be in everyone’s interest but there are conflicting priorities. Those who delight in criticising necessary-but-imperfect trade-offs will baulk at advancing peace and prosperity. There are countless ways this war could end but an ‘unconditional surrender’ is extremely unlikely. Complex negotiations await and pursuing best-case outcomes will necessitate distasteful compromises. Cancelling…Continue reading Will Putin cancel ‘cancel culture’?

Vladimir Putin is more a symptom than a cause. Russia and South Africa were both reconstituted in the twilight of the Cold War and, like most of today’s stagnating resource-endowed nations, both soon drifted toward indulging anti-Western, anti-development biases. South Africa’s and Russia’s economic trajectories are dreadful for similar reasons. Commodity exporting and patronage politics…Continue reading SA lessons for Putin’s enemies

As the Second World War marked the beginning of the colonial era’s demise, the Russia-Ukraine war is a pivot point that should inspire a fresh assessment of post-independence outcomes. The Cold War and the independence movement overlapped for roughly four decades. During the following thirty years of post-Cold War globalisation, dozens of former colonies flourished…Continue reading Scoring post-colonial outcomes

Many Europeans will struggle to heat their homes and pay their bills this winter. South Africa’s trajectory is more troubling still. The costs of clinging to misplaced ideals can compound unaffordably.          Ukraine’s leaders did not believe Putin’s massive troop build-up along their border was a prelude to an invasion. For decades, German leaders sought to…Continue reading Confronting misplaced ideals

Sudden geological wealth threatening investments in worker productivity is termed Dutch disease. Does our entrenched youth unemployment crisis stem from a sudden and unexpected spate of political advances? ‘Dutch Disease’ refers to how 1970s North Sea oil discoveries sharply increased the value of that country’s currency thus undermining the competitiveness of its manufacturing and other…Continue reading Dutch Disease … South African Syndrome