*National Growth Path Response* *Introduction*
The New Growth Path (herein under referred to as NGP) has been subject of a much heated discussion immediately after its release, with the ANC calling it work in progress but work, SACP welcoming it as paradigm shift, while COSATU has been very critical with some of its affiliates even calling it a revised GEAR. The purpose of this article is to persuade a discussion away from what is fast becoming an academic, if not a sterile debate, with some seeking ONLY to affirm or reject the NGP document as either a paradigm shift or a revised GEAR. It is important that we do not adopt a rejectionist attitude, as we are likely to lose an opportunity to engage with the document and in it identify what is progressive and therefore what is to be complimented, in the same vein if we depart to affirm a paradigm shift we may lose an opportunity of interrogating problematic areas in the document. Therefore a deliberate intent is made so to refrain from being locked in the anti or pro corner but to sustain a responsible discussion that says what we can expropriate that is good in the document but equally to expose that which is a limitation of the NGP. This article therefore is purposefully not going to reflect in all sentences in the NGP that can stimulate debate, but it will make references for purposes of simply demonstrating at a high level that which can form a basis of struggle and or consolidation within NGP. *CONTEXT & BACKGROUND* Acknowledging that the political breakthrough of 1994 and the ushering of the democratic government was characterised by blatant constraints that adversely affected the speed in which the better life for all was to be realised. Firstly the transition was ultimately a negotiated settlement which meant that for peaceful transition some compromises had to be made (it is immaterial for purpose of this article to venture into the correctness or non- thereof of the property clause and other economic compromises). Secondly the Soviet Union which had been strategic ally and a resource in all respects had buckled and that had far-reaching consequences on path that South Africa was to take. Thirdly structural constraints as informed by 300 years of oppression and domination meant that a tiny section of our society composed of white monopoly capital had a firm grip over the economy and the ownership of the wealth of the country, with the rest of the African majority forcibly excluded from the mainstream economy and only essential to offer harshly exploited labour and or languishing in poverty of the segregated homelands and townships. Notwithstanding the overhead veracities of the epoch, since 1994 up until 2008 the economy of the country had been steered to a steady growth of 4% - 8%, but the neo – liberal policy decisions espoused in the said period meant that little or no dent was made on the structural makeup of our economy, the steady growth only benefitted large private white capital and the parasitic bourgeoisie, with the working class being a victim of salary cuts and retrenchments in this job-shedding economic growth. The structure of the economy of our country has only succeeded to increase inequality and thereby resulting in South Africa being one of the most unequal countries in the world. The high levels of inequality in the country are easily depicted by the fact that in the mid-‘00s about 40% of the national income went to the richest 10% of households. These extreme inequalities are directly connected with extraordinarily high levels of joblessness. In the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate for young people aged 16 to 30 was 40%, compared to 16% for those aged 30 to 65. Amongst the employed, many workers had poorly paid, insecure and dead-end jobs. In the third quarter of 2008 according to Statistics South Africa half of all employed people earned less than R2500 a month and over a third earned under R1000 a month. The informal sector, agriculture and domestic work contributed a third of all employment, but recent figures show that even in these low– skilled or semi–skilled sectors the labour absorption capacity is on the decline, moreover, one in five employed African women in the period under review were domestic workers. It also has to be noted due to the ever increasing cost of living the working class continues to be the hardest hit hard hit by these rising costs particularly in transport, electricity, food, education and health, especially when you take into account that over a third of working people in South Africa are earning under R1000 per month. With massive shedding of jobs, high poverty levels, high levels of underdevelopment and preposterous inequality. Inevitably therefore South African’s possessed a huge appetite for departure from policy choices that have evidently not worked into alternative strategic policy direction. Therefore when government made a pronouncement to the nation of the New Growth Path that will ensure that growth is linked with job creation (five million in next ten years to be exact), immediately to millions it meant a strategic departure from the old and the obvious reaction was to welcome such a bold assertion and intent. Therefore as stated earlier our aim in this paper is to analyse whether indeed is there a strategic policy shift, what areas for consolidation are and what forms the basis of struggle moving forward. *NGP AS BASIS OF CONSOLIDATION* If we are still persuaded by Karl Marx in that ‘’the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle” then it follows that this class struggle does not only ensue in those intermittent moments when workers rally in the streets demanding a living wage or when communities mobilize for better quality public services. The high concentration of political power in the state fashions it to be a sight for bitter class contests and consequently the cabinet as an executive arm of the state is not sparred from this antagonistic struggle. The fact therefore is that NGP emerges out of a class contested process and the materialist conception of history tells us that no class has ever gracefully bowed off stage. It can only then be probable that architects of South Africa’s neo – liberal economic policy paradigm for the past fifteen years were not going to just gracefully agree or suddenly be transformed into a new progressive mind-set on the basis that the working class is now demanding that this be the decade of working class economic gains. Without over-estimating the point of the NGP as a product of a class contested process wherein limitations of what as working class we have not won on the streets and nor in Polokwane, winning it in the boardrooms of the Union Buildings was always going to be more difficult. That being said, the NGP’s emphasis on growth that creates jobs(five million in the next ten years nogal) and not just jobs but decent jobs that pay a living wage, sustainable with better working conditions and with job security. Further the NGP’s focus on beneficiation of primary goods, developing skills and expanding economy with abundance of linkages forms the basis of what must be consolidated going forward. The progressive affirmation that the state is to play a leading role not only on the creation of an enabling environment for private business but also taking an active economic interest in investing and directing the economy, thus affording an opportunity upon which a service delivery oriented and developmental state can be modelled while alternative forms of ownership which are based on people’s power can be explored. It is equally commendable how the NGP institutes linkages with other policy imperatives and work that is being done by other government departments and SOE’s placing therefore coherence into government’s work, indeed the clearly articulated linkages with IPAP 1, IRP 2 & IPAP 2 are quite welcome. The NGP’s deliberate intent to break from colonial and apartheid spatial development patterns can break the dominance of the monopolised finance-energy-mineral complex on the economy and therefore presenting a solid basis for a vigorous diversification and beneficiation of our economy. Such initiatives can be driven into developing the full capacity for benefiting from the whole value chain of our primary goods and minerals. The NGP espouses consolidating trade policies to stimulate exports, prioritisation of domestic production, the creation of linkages with the African markets and broader developing economies particularly BRICS. Such can if deepened can place South Africa and confidently our partners in emerging countries in a decent stand to advance an alternative economic block premised on mutual respect and reciprocated benefit and emerging signs have revealed that this is conceivable. Further these partnerships will go a long way to finally break the reliance from colonial masters whom have never had an honest interest of seeing their former colonies flourishing but who were and remain content with raping our raw materials and in ensuring that Africans continue to beggars of donor or that aid. The NGP also espouses what the left in particular has been calling for, a resourced and active Industrial Policy as a pillar for economic growth. Further it dedicates a lot energy in formulating rural development policy to integrate and leverage on economic potential opportunities that had been deliberately ignored for decades which can only be in the best interest of rural mass that relates with abject poverty not from statistic’s or the Oxford dictionary but on every day basis. Also the refocusing of competition policy to strategic areas and all similar suggested initiatives are important in that capital must constantly be disciplined and legal instruments in the hands of legislators must be used effectively in this regard. The constant underlying feature is that if all these are to be done and the South African economy be fully transformed it is imperative that education, skills development and training must receive a greater focus and the NGP affirms this point. Initiatives to support SMME’s, CO-OPS etc must also be welcomed with the emphasis that collective or community forms of ownership must be deliberately supported as they broaden participation and benefits against supporting the private empire creation of individuals using the public purse with shoddy workmanship in many instances and abject exploitation of workers, which must therefore be pressured to do a substantive interrogation of BEE (for limitation of space we will not put all the B’s and E’s while impact is still the same) The proposals on key resource drivers also make interesting propositions that must not only be supported but be campaigned for i.e the establishment of a State Bank, State Owned Mining Company and the consolidation of Public Health Insurance .The identified job drivers with no reservation provide the much required innovation and creativity in growing an economy that is sustainable and has the requisite capacity to create jobs on a large scale. To that extent it provides micro tinkering that provide basis for NGP, these drivers consist of but not limited to: - Substantial public investment in infrastructure to create both direct and indirect job - Targeting more labour-absorbing sectors with reference to agricultural and mining value chains, manufacturing and services. - Taking advantage of new opportunities in the knowledge and green economies. - Leveraging social capital in the social economy and the public services. - Fostering rural development and regional integration. The priority on areas to support employment as earlier mentioned demonstrate a clear intent to diversify the economy and beneficiate the full value chain in the following strategic sectors: - Infrastructure - agricultural value chain - mining value chain - green economy - manufacturing sectors, which are included in IPAP2, and - Tourism and certain high-level services. *NGP CONSTRAINTS* The fundamental constraints of the South African economy has been its structural setting in that through capitalist colonisation and subsequent apartheid economic policies it was deliberately designed such that a few of white capital to monopolise economy and to the exclusion of the African majority from participation. The post – 1994 government succeeded as far as sustaining growth of the economy and forming what YCL affirmed, as inspired by Ha-Joon Chang terming it a "cappuccino society", because there is a mass of poor black people at the bottom, a thin layer of white froth above it and a sprinkling of cocoa (BEE elite) at the top. Limitation therefore had been that underpinnings of governmental posture had been neo – liberal with subsequent growth being suspicious to shed jobs as neo – liberal orientation is primarily individualistic and vigorous in entrenching capitalist ideology. The result therefore was to be clearly forecasted that little or no dent on ownership patterns of the economy was to happen, infact GEAR entrenched the capitalist orientated production patterns with similar consequence. Despite half-hearted argument by NGP document to lower rand but its overall crux affirms the macro – economic outlook of what has been order of the day i.e fiscal discipline, inflation targeting, stricter monetary controls to influence inflation targeting, relative strong rand etc. The macroeconomic frameworks whom have underpinned the neo – liberal trajectory of the past 17 years reflect the paradigm consolidation in macro-economic underpinnings. The point we are arguing therefore is that NGP at macro level demonstrate paradigm consolidation and therefore the new path will continue at strategic level to constrain the economic path. We must take a deliberate decision to break away from colonial and apartheid capitalism and subsequent neo –liberal job shedding era. It is also glaring that NGP does not concern itself with transforming the ownership patterns for the economy to alter from dictates of white monopoly capital and be reflective of demographics of the country, worse little is forthcoming on collective and community ownership. The assertion by NGP that private sector is to play leading role in social combat and creation of jobs with intent of improving lives for all is ambitious, in that the experience informs us that private sector had greatly benefited in generating profits on the past decade and such monies have not gone in the pockets of workers but job shedding had been the subsequent fate of workers in periods of economic boom and generation of profits. The attempt to forge class collaboration and societal compromises must take into account that working class of South Africa has nothing to compromise and nothing to offer as on daily basis is exploited if not dismissed by ruling capitalist class. Act of parliament not begging email must be passed as to discipline capital and ensure that executives and shareholders to not receive ludicrous salaries and profits while those who work means of production earn peanuts if earn at all. A caution must equally be made in avoiding putting the cart before the horse, in that chasing of numbers which have been declared may if not carefully considered lead to chasing of unsustainable jobs. With may therefore detour the country from pursing overall strategy even worse in that no clear program has been put on how these five millions jobs will be found and further be consistent with crux of NGP, we however trust that these critical question will not be overlooked. *Conclusion* The NGP in overall provides continuity and change, in that at an overarching macro dimension it provides continuity which will continue to subject the growth path to the same constraints as we have witnessed in the past decade. Therefore NGP will continue to mitigate class relations without interfering with the entrenching dominants of speculative market orientation. The subsequent result is that it will be unable to tend the set production patterns and underpinning of the prevailing capitalist dictates and therefore change property relations of this country. In the final analysis failure to change production relations will only lock the production patterns in scenario that few own means of production with overwhelming majority only working means of production for substance living, it is a common cause that under capitalism massive reserve unemployed labour remains a must for to survive meaning under the current production trajectory full employment will not be realisable. However at micro level it provides required assertiveness and leadership in setting the economy in sound pedestal that is state lead. Appreciative of sustainable growth that creates jobs and expands the economy of the country while providing growth that has potential to establish new economic blocks away from neo – colonial masters. In the final analysis NGP provides space for consolidation of alternative growth path, therefore it will be ideological irresponsible to be dismissive of the document but equally its reform must not be construed as beginning of the end for the struggle of policy direction that is setting South Africa on road to socialism. *Mawethu Rune is Deputy National Chairperson of YCL and former President of SASCO * -- 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. 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