Cde Sentle, I really missed out after being away from the forum and I felt indebted to reply to your submission. Let me first agree with you that had nationalisation programme be part and parcel of the political settlement this situation could have been different today. This is the reason why I don't advocate for the nationalisation of mines under the current economic situation because material conditions are favourable for capitalism to triumph. Put simply, whatever model of nationalisation the state pursues will only enrich a few minorities benefitted from the unintended consequences of the black economic empowerment policy - and further widen the disparities between the rich and the poor - thus leaving mass population of the country in abject poverty, uneducated and unemployable without any political will to change the status quo. A high level or increase in unskilled and poor population will lead the nation into a dependency syndrome, a sense of entitlement to social grants for survival, while the state uses billions of tax-payer's money to take ownership of the mines whose prospects of sustainability to absorb unemployment rate and push back the frontiers of poverty are virtually unthinkable. Let's take cue from President Jacob Zuma's state of the nation address that nationalisation is not government policy and develop rather an effective strategic planning retreat to put more emphasis on nationalising entities that are involved in collusive and monopoly pricing practices hurting the poor and the economy. Such a strategy will ward off any unnecessary negotiated settlements for offenders to get away with a lighter penalty and fines which equal to 10% of total group turnover, while the alleged tampered price does not get reversed or changed to its origin. What a legislative failure! We need to do away with a cheque-book prosecutions, and not even allow companies implicated in cartel behaviour to cut deals in exchange for a lighter penalty and giving those charged ammunition to manoeuver ways to appeal on grounds that a fine will hit its overall earnings - Pioneer Foods' experience being the case in point. A struggle to fight corruption is a necessary for building a developmental state, a state whose priority is the eradication of poverty and reducing growing inequalities in society. It's against this background that we should not rush into nationalising mines but thrash out all existing loopholes and safeguard the state against the 1996 class project not to conflate South Africa's national interests with the sectoral interests of the capitalists who are major players in the collusive and monopoly pricing practices to up their sales. It's therefore necessary to debate the economic consequences of a nationalisation plan with due diligence been fully thought through. In fact, the nationalisation plan will not only be costly and burdensome for the state but lead the government to abandon the overall thrust of our development path which seeks to redress past inequalities and transform all entities established under Apartheid regime to entrench racial capitalism in its forms of manifestation. It would rather make scientific sense to start by re-nationalisation of previously state-owned entities such as SASOL and ArcelorMittal (formerly Iscor), including firms that abuse their dominant monopoly and committing prohibited practices like price-fixing collusion and cartel activities. Coming back to the issue of not letting us to fear investor confidence... One thing for sure is that we are a sovereign state but part of a trading bloc informed by bilateral and multilateral agreements. We also need to bear in mind that our industrial policy seeks to mobilise foreign direct investments in order to pursue a more labour-absorbing industrialisation path characterised by increased participation of historically disadvantaged people and marginalised regions in the mainstream of the industrial economy. This cannot be achieved if we totally disregard investor confidence by willy-nilly adopting policies whose consequences of failure are so dire to the economy and the vision of a better life for all. The reality is that SA like many other industrialised countries emerged from the recession which thrown companies' revenue forecasts into to disarray leading to employees being laid off in labour-intensive sectors while the cost of living and consumer indebtedness grow at more than an exponential rate. We should fully appreciate the effect that the recession had on inflation and the economy, and thus ask ourselves what consequences this would have had on the economy had mines been nationalised. It's therefore a misnomer to think that the nationalisation of mines will be beacon of hope for the government to better the lives of all people, if not a thin to non-existent reality. A constructive engagement is the only means to find common ground on the matter. I trust comrades would consider this input as a personal contribution to the debate introduced by cde Sentle and not an attempt by me to draw any inferences to a particular person. Amandla! Remain, Morgan Phaahla Ekurhuleni
"Sometimes, if you wear suits for too long, it changes your ideology." - Joe Slovo --- On Tue, 3/9/10, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [YCLSA Discussion] FW: What is to be done? To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 3:18 PM -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] Sent: 09/03/2010 21:53:18 Subject: What is to be done? Comrades i appreciate your positive response on my input in this political discourse and Mangaliso indeed i wont mind the lifestyle audit on me, as long as it will be both independent and objective. Apartheid has collapsed, the 96' class project rose and fell out of power however we should be carefull dat it has not left a contimnation which will spread like flu and destroy the very same soul of the people, the soul of our movement. Furthermore, i would agree with point that we must go back to basics but a problem becomes that as comrades we have become somewhat selective of what we listen to and to whom do we listen. It has become a trend of this current epoch. These tendencies and disparities are directly or indirectly interlinked with the crass accumulation of economic wealth. On that note of the economy, comrades i am really interested in understanding why was the economy not forming part of the negotiated settlement because i really want to believe that if nationalisation happened at that time we would not be in this situation of disagreeing on the very essence of our revolution and maybe SASCO would not be in the streets, the students at UJ would still be in class and not worrying about any fees or whatsoever. Furthermore, coming to this issue of NATIONALISATION i really believe that should have happened along time ago however this not the case and what is to be done? 1-Nationalisation is in my view a principle issue 2-We should not be selective of what to Nationalise[the reserve bank,the commercial and private banks, ALL THE MINEs and to some extent the farms], thus we will be able to direct the economy to a better life for all 3-ensure mass participation on this whole issue 4-nationalize through the government, the will of the people 5-let us not fear investor confidence it is an idle threat and on the case of some of these indebted entities, comrades debt is built into the monetary system, unless we capture the reserve bank we shall not be able to change the modern money mechanics 6-with regard to the skill to mange all these entities, comrades we shall teach ourselves in the line of fire. THE 1944 GENERATION BROUGHT FREEDOM IN THEIR LIFETIME OURS THUS BECOMES THAT OF 'BRINGING A BETTER LIFE ALL IN OUR LIFETIME' Yours in persuit of what is to be done? Sentle Oliphant -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
