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WITH an unemployment rate of anywhere between 25% and 37% depending on the narrow or wider definition of the problem, social cohesion within South Africa remains fragile yet remarkably stable.
The provision of homes, electricity and water - which forms part of improved basic services - has partially helped to maintain this stability.
Perhaps though, the real stabiliser of an otherwise potentially volatile social order has been the remarkable rollout of social income grants and related state-funded pension enhancements that now keep 16 million South Africans from falling back below the poverty line.
Indeed, this is not only morally and ethically essential but is also politically important in maintaining the equilibrium of stability within society.
However, dramatic and well-intentioned state interventions such as these can also have damaging unintended consequences.
Social services practitioners will point to citizens illegally securing grants, or even in extreme or desperate cases harming themselves in order to qualify for medical or disability benefits.
However, in our case a core unintended consequence of a necessary and efficient policy is more deep-rooted and psychological – that of encouraging and even fostering a culture of entitlement rather than a culture of entrepreneurship.
Expecting the state to provide rather than relying on innovation via self-improvement and individual empowerment can become a potent opium that creates a state of dependency within the psyche.
In South Africa, this is augmented by an ongoing scepticism and suspicion for the private sector and profit-driven private enterprise - often articulated by political parties and their respective leaders.
Entitlement - as indicated - is entirely moral when its use puts bread on the table. Controversially in our recent past, increased state payments have also coincided with broad advances in the important consumer LSM categories which points increasing towards recipients spending these much-needed grants at retail outlets across the country.
The retail boom over the last five years may well be partially ascribed to an improved discretionary spend – but not necessarily on essentials or even prudently managed, which has resulted in added debt.
Financial management of even small sums like social income grants perhaps is as important as receiving them.
An “entitlement” culture is certainly also exacerbated by a fundamental lack of state capacity to enable and empower its citizenry, and so uplift them out of this malaise.
Poor educational systems and work opportunities compound what then becomes a default position: ‘if my education is inadequate and there are no jobs, the state will look after me’.
Although there are a multitude of complex factors that hamper gross domestic product (GDP), the extended effects of entitlement when compounded by poor economic prospects, inadequate government performance and non-existent basic financial management clearly has a negative effect.
Ironically, Africa’s growth economies like Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Angola and even Kenya offer few safety nets for their people – yet they manage impressive growth rates at two to three times that of South Africa.
Africans are natural entrepreneurs as the bustling streets of Lagos or Kampala show, but this vibrancy and vitality in entrepreneurial spirit somehow does not enjoy quite the same impetus here.
Although impossible to measure, this move towards entitlement in South Africa may well play a role in entrepreneurial lethargy.
The danger for South Africa is that we as a nation are getting far too used to the state as final arbiter of our financial future. And the state is equally getting used to doling out benefits that are needed to keep the populace relatively satisfied and less likely to vote for another political party at the polls.
Keeping this balancing act intact is predicated on higher GDP figures and commensurate revenue collection - an increasingly tough act to achieve for the ANC.
Fundamentally though, the moral necessity of responsibility to the poor should not also condemn them to this state forever, and should be tweaked to unleash the innate entrepreneurial spirit in all South Africans.
- Fin24
*Daniel Silke is director of the Political Futures Consultancy and is a noted keynote speaker and commentator. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielSilke or visit his website.
The provision of homes, electricity and water - which forms part of improved basic services - has partially helped to maintain this stability.
Perhaps though, the real stabiliser of an otherwise potentially volatile social order has been the remarkable rollout of social income grants and related state-funded pension enhancements that now keep 16 million South Africans from falling back below the poverty line.
Indeed, this is not only morally and ethically essential but is also politically important in maintaining the equilibrium of stability within society.
However, dramatic and well-intentioned state interventions such as these can also have damaging unintended consequences.
Social services practitioners will point to citizens illegally securing grants, or even in extreme or desperate cases harming themselves in order to qualify for medical or disability benefits.
However, in our case a core unintended consequence of a necessary and efficient policy is more deep-rooted and psychological – that of encouraging and even fostering a culture of entitlement rather than a culture of entrepreneurship.
Expecting the state to provide rather than relying on innovation via self-improvement and individual empowerment can become a potent opium that creates a state of dependency within the psyche.
In South Africa, this is augmented by an ongoing scepticism and suspicion for the private sector and profit-driven private enterprise - often articulated by political parties and their respective leaders.
Entitlement - as indicated - is entirely moral when its use puts bread on the table. Controversially in our recent past, increased state payments have also coincided with broad advances in the important consumer LSM categories which points increasing towards recipients spending these much-needed grants at retail outlets across the country.
The retail boom over the last five years may well be partially ascribed to an improved discretionary spend – but not necessarily on essentials or even prudently managed, which has resulted in added debt.
Financial management of even small sums like social income grants perhaps is as important as receiving them.
An “entitlement” culture is certainly also exacerbated by a fundamental lack of state capacity to enable and empower its citizenry, and so uplift them out of this malaise.
Poor educational systems and work opportunities compound what then becomes a default position: ‘if my education is inadequate and there are no jobs, the state will look after me’.
Although there are a multitude of complex factors that hamper gross domestic product (GDP), the extended effects of entitlement when compounded by poor economic prospects, inadequate government performance and non-existent basic financial management clearly has a negative effect.
Ironically, Africa’s growth economies like Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Angola and even Kenya offer few safety nets for their people – yet they manage impressive growth rates at two to three times that of South Africa.
Africans are natural entrepreneurs as the bustling streets of Lagos or Kampala show, but this vibrancy and vitality in entrepreneurial spirit somehow does not enjoy quite the same impetus here.
Although impossible to measure, this move towards entitlement in South Africa may well play a role in entrepreneurial lethargy.
The danger for South Africa is that we as a nation are getting far too used to the state as final arbiter of our financial future. And the state is equally getting used to doling out benefits that are needed to keep the populace relatively satisfied and less likely to vote for another political party at the polls.
Keeping this balancing act intact is predicated on higher GDP figures and commensurate revenue collection - an increasingly tough act to achieve for the ANC.
Fundamentally though, the moral necessity of responsibility to the poor should not also condemn them to this state forever, and should be tweaked to unleash the innate entrepreneurial spirit in all South Africans.
- Fin24
*Daniel Silke is director of the Political Futures Consultancy and is a noted keynote speaker and commentator. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielSilke or visit his website.
