05 JANUARY 2016 – 08:18

LEO Tolstoy began his novel Anna Karenina with: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” SA’s unhappiness is unique and unsustainable.

The country’s cultural identities and historical wounds are being channelled to repackage factional interests as values. This constrains, compromises and undermines co-ordination efforts. Such meta-messaging used to benefit the African National Congress (ANC); now it benefits only a modest number of its cronies.

Democracies are designed to resolve competing interests. Conflicting values are far less amenable to solutions. SA’s growth and transformation objectives are stalemated by entrenched patronage, which precludes solution paths in a demanding global environment. Unsustainable, pervasive patronage is prolonged by emotive debates that sideline constructive deliberations.

Values-based distractions range from President Jacob Zuma’s personal issues to infusing policy statements with dated communist rhetoric. Such diversions support patronage while undermining policy making….

DESTITUTE people favour politicians who attribute their poverty to the greed of others. The wealthy tend to believe it is fine, perhaps even helpful, to loan money to low-income workers at exceedingly high interest rates. Values are exploited and indulged with little regard for compounding consequences.

It is tempting for prosperous people to blame ordinary Greeks for Greece’s troubles and US borrowers for the subprime crisis. Such values-based conclusions are partly justified, but disregard facts and insights critical for policy making. Values-based perspectives are the enemy of science and solutions. AIDS was denied by many, while being seen by some zealots as God’s revenge on homosexuals and intravenous drug users. Successful medical research requires isolating value judgments.

Many South Africans live on near-subsistence levels. Such poverty coincides with inadequate advancement paths. The global economy being nearly 100 times larger than 200 years ago traces to four potent forces: industrialisation, specialisation, global integration and innovation….

PRODUCTIVITY surged when modestly educated workers were teamed with powerful machines. That era is closing. The global industrial-to-services swing complicates SA’s growth and transformation challenges, while permanently impairing the nation’s commodity wealth.

Values-based debates crowd out strategic discussions necessary for responding to global events. Rather, they accommodate unrealistic, patronage-inspired initiatives, such as directing state resources to create 100 black industrialists.

As the economies of East Asia and the West effectively merged, nation-based economics have been superseded by an integrated global economy with an excess of low-skilled labour and a dearth of highly skilled workers. Developing exceptional skills requires much learning — drawing upon two or three generations — and specialisation.

SA’s economic prospects, for the first time, rely upon truly integrating within the global economy through workers adding value. Yet investments — particularly in people — are woefully inadequate. SA’s workers are more indebted than competitive….

THE floundering of priorities such as education reflects weak political processes. Inciting voter loyalty through values-focused sloganeering infused by historic narratives shifts focus from service delivery shortfalls.

Being seen as a valued neighbour is emotionally appealing. But trading across Africa does not meaningfully advance SA’s global integration. The region’s markets are too small and isolated to inspire best-of-breed competitiveness. Asian competitors routinely sharpen their teeth in large, demanding markets, then chew up the incumbents in smaller markets.

Progress requires aligning various forms of investments, specialisation and innovation to achieve global competitiveness and integration. This is doable, but the prodigious commercial challenges are exceeded by, and preceded by, SA’s mammoth political obstacles.

True progress will remain elusive until the ANC leadership and its supporters accept that their values and expectations must be updated to accommodate global dynamics. Such reinventions are unlikely in the absence of an immediate threat of electoral dismissal….

THE national elections of May 2019 are distant; SA’s economic challenges are immediate. Outsiders expect a leadership faction to emerge within the ANC that can purge a deeply entrenched patronage machine and right SA’s economy by twisting the party’s covenants with its supporters from focusing on fairness to competitiveness.

A precedent is Japan’s Meji Restoration. Their response to looming external threats precipitated the rise of Asia. Now Asian successes are more relevant to SA’s future prospects than the country’s difficult past.

Asian countries have demonstrated that focusing on competitiveness leads to greater fairness. Born as a struggle movement, the ANC obsesses on fairness and eschews competitiveness and global integration. This precludes broad prosperity. The global economy, which has supported and been reshaped by the rise of Asia, is not going to reinvent itself to redress SA’s historical injustices. Nor can SA achieve broad prosperity without fully overcoming the political-economic isolation that preceded the 1994 transition.

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FOR decades, SA’s resource wealth and isolation have provoked patronage systems that restrain growth, transformation and integration into the global economy. Zuma’s legal issues have further spurred clientelism.

The Constitution ensures that Zuma can be removed from office prior to 2019 only by the ANC or through a legal process — which probably could be thwarted by aggressive extrajudicial means.

Perhaps Zuma laughs so frequently because his patronage machine is deeply entrenched and there are no significant factions within the ANC that support a pro-competitiveness policy shift; trying to recall him is risky. The prevailing faction would neither be able to fix the economy nor match the largesse Zuma has distributed.

The common denominator among “solutions” offered is that they mix massive leaps of faith with ignoring crucial dynamics. The ANC and opposition party members are prone to focus unduly on values and ideals.

Parliamentary processes are enfeebled by the lack of a looming election, while the Constitution helps enforce party discipline. SA’s business leaders are highly competent at running businesses, but lack the skills or mandates to challenge SA’s elected leaders.

Street protests highlight tensions without illuminating workable options. Before SA’s policy processes can identify potent solution paths, regular and much more effective assemblage is required.

SA’s public discourse needs to de-emphasise values in favour of objective analysis. Last year, SA’s media began to clearly distinguish between patronage and corruption. The differences between competency and competitiveness remain underappreciated in a policy context.

Innovation and entrepreneurialism, while important, must not be misperceived as alternatives to removing core blockages. Pursuing justice, which is essential, is easily conflated with directly chasing fairness, which remains counterproductive….

THE ANC’s internal challenges and no-go areas need to be understood objectively by outsiders. ANC leaders must accept how susceptible to events their party has become.

As currently only the ANC can drive political shifts, its internal curbs limit the nation. Meanwhile, only big business can lift the economy meaningfully and rapidly.

Understanding and trust-building are blocked by politicised values. Forums in which business, political, and other leaders can interact with local and global experts to unpack impartially the complex interactions that determine economic and political progress are needed. Interests masqueraded as values mock objective insights. Innovative reflexes can be aligned, but only after challenges have been unpacked and major blockages dissected. Assemblage options are needed where partisanship gives way to well-informed deliberations.

SA is an unhappy family. Happier days await more even-handed assessments of how best to advance our varied interests.

Published in Business Day