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Wealth and poverty: it's all relative

IN JUNE, I had a chance to go to Kokstad, which I’d never visited before. To my surprise, it wasn’t your bog-standard country town, with an undertaker, a Spar, an abandoned NG Kerk, a Chinese shop and a couple of agri-equipment outlets. Kokstad has an energy, probably derived from its status as a crossroads between the N2 from eThekwini to the Eastern Cape, and the Matatiele road heading to Lesotho.

It has problems, sure; and its residents made it clear in May this year that they consider their municipality to be corrupt. But it’s got energy: lots of micro businesses in the centre of town, people cooking by the side of the road, people willing to take on board new ideas, seeing and seizing opportunities quickly.

There’s something surreal about going into places like Shayamoya (Kokstad’s township) or Sol Plaatjie, the township close to my home office, and then reading an article in the business press entitled Seven crippling beliefs that are keeping South Africans poor. (Business Times, July 10 2016)

What is keeping us poor, then? What is it that dooms the people of Shayamoya or Sol Plaatjie to a life of want, of hunger and need?

Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki gave us the lowdown, as conveyed by motivational speaker Justin Cohen, who wrote the article.

'Don't be a wage slave'

Kiyosaki wants you to be an investor or business owner rather than an employee, or a wage slave, as he calls it. Kiyosaki apparently thinks it’s stupid to save - rather invest money in assets, “preferably property where you avoid tax by using the bank’s money”.

He thinks debt is good: “Using debt to buy appreciating assets like business and property is good. Kiyosaki has built a $300 million property portfolio that he started with a credit card payment of $1 800. How? By using the bank’s money.”

So my first thought is, this is not talking about being poor, this is talking about being middle class and just not making it over the hump into wealthy. For almost all the people of Shayamoya or Sol Plaatjie the idea of getting a job, let alone a loan from the bank, is a pipe-dream – the most common form of debt among South Africa’s is owed to micro lenders charging exorbitant interest rates, or to furniture companies.

And my second thought is, why is it always YOUR fault you’re ‘poor’? This category of writers and speakers – who, as I pointed out recently, have very often had a great start in life, with support from ‘rich dads’, spending little time in the real workplace before their Big Idea pays off, or perhaps parlaying a comfortable livelihood in academia into a million-dollar book-and-speaking career… these guys so commonly talk as if it’s all about the fact that YOU fail.

You don’t start your own business; you never thought to resign from your job and take a flying leap into some uncharted territory. If you had, why, you’d be like ME, Mr (or occasionally Ms) Billionaire!

But here’s the thing: many of us simply can’t do those things. Can’t, conceivably, ever; not won’t.

I, for example, have not a smidgeon of salesperson DNA. I did try to sell, a couple of times, with miserable results. The natural salespeople scoff – of course you can do it, they say. Well, right back atcha, guys. When someone says to me I’d write about it, if only I could write like you, I could respond: “Ha! It’s easy! You’re just too damn lazy to try!”

But it wouldn’t be true. Wordsmithery is my little talent; selling is not. We all have different talents: some can be turned to good use, even to money-making use; others just can’t. I used to know someone, for example, who was absolutely ace at calming and amusing little children. Could he (yes, it really was a he) have made a million as a child-carer or nursery school teacher? To quote Eliza Doolittle, not bloody likely.

And not all of us can take those astounding and courageous leaps of faith. Not because we don’t have courage, but because we have responsibility. A friend was given the chance of a lifetime, to chuck everything in and go work on the other side of the world, in a glamorous and potentially rewarding industry – if she stuck it out and lived on baked beans for a year or so. But if she had, she would have had to leave her parents, then living on a reduced income, with the burden of paying back her student fees, for which they’d stood surety. So she didn’t go. And I respect her for it.

And finally, not all of us want the burden of riches. There are people who are happy and very rich, but I’ve not met many. I have met very happy poorer people, though. One such said to me: “What could I want for? I have everything I need.” He had a very average ageing car, a middle-of-the-road smartphone… and a rich network of caring family and friends, dogs at his heels and vegetables growing just outside his workshop where he was making a hand-polished table for a family member.

If you could come up with a plan for Seven Things that would create community and safety and satisfaction on that scale for ALL South Africans… then you’d really be saying something.

*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on Twitter.

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