As is Cees Bruggemans’ customary way, he cuts straight to the chase. Alec previously mentioned how losing the shackles of a corporate have freed him up – and it is very evident. In his latest piece, Cees compares the man who guided England through the second World War, Winston Churchill, with the Democratic Alliance leader Musi Maimane. He goes back to pre-World War One days though, where Churchill laid an assault on Socialism – and says Maimane faces the same hard fought 80-year battle starting with next year’s municipal elections. – Stuart Lowman
By Cees Bruggemans*
Would you recognise these words? Spoken with a certain vehemence:
• “Liberalism is not Socialism, and never will be. There is a great gulf fixed. It is not a gulf of method, it is a gulf of principle….
• Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty.
• Socialism would destroy private interests; Liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way in which they can be safely & justly preserved, namely by reconciling them with public right.
• Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege & preference.
• Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man.
• Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks monopoly.”
One could easily mistake the DA’s leader Maimane taking on the Jim/Vavi combine, alongside Gwede and Blade’s radical transformation, in the 2016 SA municipal elections.
Instead, it is Winston Churchill (then aged 33) in his assault on Socialism, about 80 years after that battle had been joined, in the Dundee by-election of 1908.
This was at a time when his speeches showed an increasing insistence upon the maintenance of the structure of society and the importance of ‘gradualness’ in changing things, his attitudes hardening from 1909 when serious industrial unrest began to cause real concern.
Yet there were still many UK political transformations, two world wars, one world depression, one Cold War and many “Winters of their Discontent” to go before 70 years later Maggie arrived to put her stamp on things (taking a decade doing so), her reforms by and large surviving New Labour thereafter to the present day (even if the old arguments refuse to fade away as Labour elects a new torch bearer).
It may give one a sense of time scales in this enterprise of turning big ships. Are we such a big ship in raging seas? Or a mere rowing boat upon placid pond? With no guarantees how this thing will turn out.
It paints the context in which we may consider economic scenarios and forecasts. And what our New Leader faces from 2019. The present crew gives little indication of changing strategy. Instead, hewing a steady course despite performance disappointment. That’s one way of getting to the future.
Reference: Robert Rhodes James “The Politician” in AJP Taylor et all “Churchill: four faces and the man” Penguin Books 1969
*Cees Bruggemans is the consulting economist at Bruggemans & Associates
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