Deconstructing Capitalism

There was a time in my own lifetime when it was “common knowledge” that Communism was evil and Capitalism was good. History, it seemed, vindicated this narrative when the Berlin wall fell in 1989, ending with it a bitter geopolitical contest that lasted more than 70 years. Arguably the greatest financial crisis in history came to remind us thirty years later that things are not quite as simple. 

With the benefit of hindsight, one wonders whether the struggle ought not to have been seen rather as the bad versus the worse. Six years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the world still staggers as if seeking for the certainty it once knew, even if unfolding events have proven that the erstwhile certainty was in fact spurious. Nevertheless the question must still be answered – is there an alternative to capitalism as we have come to know it?

The question is weighty and will surely be answered by the great minds that occasionally grace the stage of history. Meanwhile I will be content to reflect on some of the flaws of capitalism that were unmasked so brutally by the Financial Crisis, along with its ubiquitous and lamentable tendency to exacerbate the gap between the rich and the poor. This might help in thinking clearer about how to construct a more sure economic foundation. 

Capitalism won the battle of ideologies for no reason other than the simple fact of it being considerably more aligned to reality than Marxism. The basic flaw of the latter consists in its idealistic conception of human nature evidenced in the absence of in-built incentives for personal initiative, industry and innovation. The Great Russian famine of 1921 effectively sealed the fate of the incipient project, replacing it with Marxist-Leninism, a system much more egregious than anything Capitalism could be accused of. Its collapse in 1989 was truly one of the great human triumphs of the 20th century. 

Although Adam Smith is regarded as the father of what came to be called capitalism, his immortalised tome, “An inquiry into nature and causes of the wealth of nations”, was essentially a codification of his observations of practices in societies that were wealthy relative to those that were not. His great contribution was not so much the invention of the free market system as much as a genius to define a system that had already differentiated certain societies from others. Modern Capitalism’s roots are traceable to the mercantile system developed by Dutch traders who predated Smith’s work by well over a century. In fact one could even go back as far as the Middle Ages. Adam Smith’s thesis on the merits of the division of labour was revolutionary in its promotion of specialization that led to greater efficiency in production and the possibility for greater depth in skill and innovation. 

The real problems emerged with the economic system that took shape with the advent of the industrial revolution in late 19th century England, that became the ugly face of human depravity, where exploitation of the weak was the order of the day. This economic system came to be called Capitalism by Karl Marx. Indeed, the birth of Marxism a century later was but a misguided response to the injustices that he and his contemporaries observed in the appalling social conditions that emerged in many European cities following the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution. Although some of the earlier inhumane practices were significantly alleviated in the West, its rise across the world has never failed to be associated with a trail of similar social outcries, from China, to Vietnam, to Bangladesh. Some of its flaws, not least its tendency to accentuate economic inequality, contain seeds that might one day account for its eventual downfall. 

Among the intellectual pillars of Capitalism is the Rational Choice Theory, which takes it for granted that human beings are rational. What worries more than the disputable factuality of that presupposition is the problematic way in which the theory came to redefine rationality. Its assimilation into Western popular thought coincided with the reinterpretation of rationality to refer to the human proclivity towards narrow self-interest. What was always known to be a social vice was effectively sanctified into something akin to a virtue. To be selfish thus came to be accepted as not only rational but socially acceptable and even desirable if not laudable. 

The idea that to be rational is to be selfish defines much of what is wrong with Capitalism. The financial services sector for example, one that is characterised by the spirit of modern capitalism in its most avaricious, is known to be highly financially rewarding not least for its lucrative bonus incentive culture. Predictably it draws to itself the best brains in society as gnats to light. The societal imbalances created by this inordinate concentration of society’s most talented in one-sector are a subject for another time. The focus now is the entrancing allure of the bonus that is known to blur the moral consciousness of people across the corporate hierarchy. The generous financial reward becomes the overarching imperative that invariably leads to a flouting of responsibility to fellow human beings both within and without the organisation, a mindset that is reinforced by what we have come to accept as a normal order of business – the unbridled pursuit of self-interest. 

It is no coincidence that capitalism usually coincides with yawning economic inequalities. Precisely because it cannot exist without them. According to the Capitalist worldview, economic profit is the primary pursuit and usually the quicker it is earned the better. Anything, including human beings, must be sacrificed to this insatiable idol. Thus people become nothing more than a line item on the financial statement, a factor of production or an easily expendable cost that must be lowered as far as possible. Indeed, there is no stopping insatiable Capital on its global expedition from one corner of the globe to the next, seeking the lowest labour “costs”. Accordingly, we have come to accept it as a matter of fact that unless we lower our labour costs, we will fail to attract or retain the Capital we need for “higher economic growth”, the content of which is not always specified. And thus society has come to be ensnared by the specious promises of Capitalism.

The reality is that for this “high economic growth” to occur people must necessarily earn low wages, sometimes pitifully low wages, along with a multiplicity of untold indignities while the owners of capital and the managerial elite live large and make a killing. This effectively defines the socially untenable economic inequalities we have come to see, without which Capitalism, as we have come to know it, cannot survive. Something must surely be amiss in a system that depends on the perpetuation of injustice for its survival. The proponents of capitalism, in other words its beneficiaries, are nevertheless at pains to convince us that this should be accepted as the workings of a normal society.

Our challenge is not so much to change human nature as much as to design a socio-economic structure that rewards what is good and disincentivises what is socially undesirable. The current orthodoxy of Capitalism certainly leaves much to be desired in this regard. It creates a parallel universe with values that are many times at odds with what is known to be right, just and decent by the common person. The interests of posterity are gleefully sacrificed at the shrine of short-term gain.

Among the primary causes of this is the typically impersonal ownership structure inherent in what is known as the “public ownership” of shares. Where the owners are numerous anonymous individuals and professional fund managers whose sole concern is the extent to which the share price will rise and usually nothing more. Managers are appointed on the basis of this narrow measure and are rewarded and punished according to the extent of their success in fulfilling it. They, in turn, soon learn how to dance to the tune of the multitude of faceless investors. The environment is thus created that promotes an inordinate preoccupation with short-term profitability. This is can only be the inevitable result when managers possess minimal long-term ties to the companies they manage. The system abets the untenable incentive systems I have referred to, along with famously Darwinian corporate cultures characterized by a fear of failure that is ultimately inimical to true innovation. 

The answer must surely lie in the de-emphasis of the public ownership model, which is the driver of much of the ills of Capitalism. Some of its touted advantages such as the supposed efficiency in the allocation of financial resources are overstated if not overshadowed by its glaring weaknesses that render it fundamentally unstable. Among these flaws is a typically inordinate reliance on debt, which is a natural outcome of a system that belligerently demands short-term results. The diminution of the public share ownership system could be achieved in a number of ways including gradually raising the tax rates of some of these corporate behemoths until they become unsustainable. The funds could then be channelled into the promotion of small to medium family owned enterprises. 

The advantage of family-owned small to medium enterprises is their inherent multigenerational scope. Because of their association with family honour and close family management, the values that govern them are much more likely to be aligned with universal virtues such as the promotion of what is right, just, equitable and decent. This lends itself to business principles that uphold the interests of the communities in which they function. A company that seeks to exist in a 100 years, as family businesses are inclined to, will surely prize a good reputation and act accordingly. 

Thus an alignment will result between corporate and community values and interests, which are usually mismatched in a Capitalistic system. The long-term perspective is also associated with low financial gearing where growth is financed by savings from profits rather than debt. The resulting low debt culture can create the added advantage of de-financialising the economy, reducing the power of far-flung unscrupulous financiers to destabilise our lives and ensures the distribution of talent across the economic sectors for balanced socio-economic development. The low debt environment would also counterbalance the pressure to pursue unsustainably high and inequitable growth rates, usually at the behest of rapacious bankers, which serve to corrupt the corporate culture and contribute to accelerated environmental damage as natural resources are consumed unsustainably. 

It can never be denied that the cause of the creation of wealth and the achievement of general socioeconomic progress are much better served by the free market than a centrally planned economy ever could. The verdict of 1989 could hardly have sent a clearer message to ages. It should be clear, however, that capitalism is no synonym for the free market. The need to find an alternative to it should ultimately be driven by its incompatibility with the ideal of a sustainably free market. From the industrial revolution until now, capitalism has been consistently associated with yawning economic asymmetries where the powerful invariably use their dominant market position to obstruct the development of a more sustainable spread of wealth. The socio-economic inequalities that result come with the looming threat of revolution and tyranny along with untenable, speculative and highly costly socio-economic experiments like Marxist-Leninism. All of which render capitalism fundamentally unstable, unsustainable and self-defeating. 

The role of the church in the quest for ethnic of reconciliation

I write that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the ground and pillar of truth. (1 Tim 3v15)

Since the Great Renaissance, the role of the church in the modern world has been under fierce contestation. Many in the Western world today consider it an anachronistic institution that is out of touch with modern realities. This is ironic considering how eminently indebted Western civilisation is to the church. This flawed narrative wouldn’t be so tragic if the message had not been so deeply internalised by the church1 itself. 

This idea has been so pervasive that the ascent of modernity has consistently coincided with the withdrawal of the church from the marketplace of ideas, often with devastating consequences. Along with this withdrawal has been a tragic departure of the light of moral clarity and truth, which the church is uniquely positioned to proclaim and model. This has left a dark shadow over a contemporary culture that cannot but disintegrate under the weight of moral relativism. 

The reality is that the church is as essential to the destiny of the nations as it has ever been. Perhaps, given the ubiquitous moral malaise and consequent drift of the nations, it might be argued that its role is more crucial in these times than ever before. 

Despite its marginalisation, self-inflicted or otherwise, the church can draw encouragement that its role is ultimately not defined by vacillating whims of the ages but rather its divinely instituted status as the “ground and pillar of truth”. 

It is the church alone that carries the divine mandate to “disciple” and to teach the nations. While the marriage of the institutional church and political governance has been shown to be historically problematic, the church’s responsibility as a prophetic voice, moral conscience and developer of leaders should never be disputed or ceded. 

The source of the church’s authority is divine and its mandate includes faithfully and fearlessly proclaiming the word of God to the nations - a simple act of incalculable power. The divine authority of the bible is evidenced by its unrivalled ability to diagnose the human condition as well as its unparalleled remedy for its ills. Any reading of scripture will confirm its uncanny ability to pierce the heart as far as “the division of soul and spirit,” “judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart”, always with incisive precision. 

The human heart might perhaps be considered as what most profoundly defines our humanity. Technological and scientific advancement of modern man can never be disputed, but these gains have failed to relieve the human heart of the dilemmas that have afflicted it from time immemorial. It is in the human heart that love, peace and self-control reside, as do such vices as hatred, greed, selfishness and pride. 

These vices are directly attributable for much of the tragedies in the catalogue of human history, including the prejudice, pride, hatred and bitterness that have proven such obstinate obstacles in the quest for genuine reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa. 

The South African constitution has received countless reviews over the years. While this might be so, its glaring failure to precipitate desperately needed moral renewal has ironically starkly exposed the limitations of political institutions and laws. Countless examples can be cited, but for our purposes, I will only highlight its failure to effectively advance the quest for true national reconciliation despite the loftiness of its ideals. 

The reason is simple, institutions and laws, as critical as they are in the effective functioning of nations, are ill equipped to deal what lies at the centre of most of national problems – the ineradicable corruption of the human heart. The gospel message is the perfect and unique cure for this intrinsic problem as it promises a new heart for the believer, and with it a fundamental transformation of values and motivations. 

The church alone has been given stewardship of the gospel message, which therefore secures its indispensability in the quest for morally sound and therefore sustainable civilisations. Thus even with the vexing issue of ethnic reconciliation, our nation continues to battle in vain because at its core are problematic heart attitudes, for which laws, even good laws, are a powerless antidote. The church therefore has an unrivalled role to play even in this critical issue. 

Humanism and its proponents might purport undying commitment to the idea of equality2. The problem with this claim is that it leaves the fundamental question jarringly unanswered: “says who?” 

If a man bestows equality, this same man, to have such authority, must necessarily be “more equal than others”, which is, of course, a fundament contradiction. Indeed, it’s not inconceivable that the same man might one day change his mind. Also, lest we forget, the universal acceptance, in theory at least, of the principle of equality of people is a fairly recent phenomenon in human history. 

The message entrusted to the church on the other hand advocates the inherent equality of all people, based on the premise that all mankind is created in the image of God. Thus man carries a dignity that is not based on any of the observable measures commonly used to judge the worth of people such as, colour, ethnicity, education, personality, gender, intelligence, athletic prowess and physical beauty. Human dignity is therefore fundamental and independent of prevailing sociological ideas - because no man bestows it, no man can take it away.

It is clear of course that the moral authority of the church and its effectual influence in society will depend on its ability to authenticate its claims by embodying the message it propagates. The word must become flesh. It is imperative that the world not merely hears the church’s message; it must see it being demonstrated. 

It should be highlighted that authenticity is not synonymous with perfection. The reality is that the message is still carried in “jars of clay”, vessels that are marred by the humbling imprints of imperfection. Nevertheless, history provides indisputable evidence that when the church does not distinguish between, “Greek and Jew, circumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman”, society soon takes notice and the world is “turned upside-down.” 

1 The use of the word church is in its broader meaning, which includes both the institutional church that consists of its governing structure and ministries as well as the essential church, which encapsulates all redeemed people of God.

2 I refer exclusively to the principle of equality in inherent worth or the principle of ontological equality, which makes room for differentiated functions and expressions as outlined in scripture.

Stewards of a sacred promise

Time has the uncanny knack of making cynics of us. What was once revered so easily degenerates into worthlessness amid the grind of time and bitter circumstance. It is imperative therefore that we cast our weary memories back to that noble promise that gave birth to our nation. It is a promise that won our allegiance against the impassioned threats of our fears and anger.

We have much to contribute to the community of nations, none of which compares to the promise that lit our hearts once upon a time. This is the audacious promise that a diverse people can overcome their differences and build a thriving multicultural society.

Though the promise was simple, intervening years have taught us that it is far from easy. It was for this reason that the world applauded, as it did, at the improbable genesis of our democratic order. It marvelled that we even dared to envision a path that had eluded and continues to elude so many, in light of what seems an inherent human proclivity towards exclusion and sectarianism.

A combination of necessity and idealism had impelled us to chart a different path from the familiar human story of ethnic division and strife. Faced with centuries of bitter animosity, we chose to scorn our inherited frame of references and to yield instead to the hope that we, a people of diverse cultures, can learn to forge a shared sense of nationhood.

Time has made us wise to the reality that the Rainbow Nation was a promise rather than a reality. Amid the exhilaration of civil war averted and the elation of a nation reborn, we had succumbed to the spurious hope that the journey would be easier than what reality demanded it should be. We would yet be painfully denuded of our naivety.

The march of time has shown us that our chosen path was one that demanded of us to reach for virtues uncommon among men. We had not been afforded the luxury of a middle ground. We were either destined for summits of greatness or the abyss of oblivion. United we would stand but divided, our ruin would be certain.

This solemn choice still confronts us today, precisely because a nation divided cannot but collapse under its own weight. The combination of inequality and bitterness in a country with a history drenched in violence from its inception, as we have come to experience, does not make for the kind of harmonious society any of us wish for our sons and daughters to inherit.

The intervening years since our improbable beginning would introduce further complications that would feed our loss of innocence and growth of cynicism, not least a political establishment of endemic corruption and incompetence. Increasingly, we came to see flagrant displays of conflicting interests of those in power to those of broader society. In some senses they have fed some of our deep-seated fears about each other, which have cajoled us at times to seek refuge in our cultural laagers where beliefs that militate against our better judgement continue to thrive.

This crisis of leadership presents us with the task of reclaiming our power as South Africans from elements bent on furthering their own interests at enormous cost to ours. This crisis poses perhaps the greatest threat to the long-term survival of our nation and thus demands our most pressing attention. Nevertheless accomplishing that goal does not take away our arduous historic task of forging a united and cohesive society founded on tangible justice for all.

We must contend with the spectre of cynicism that confronts us and reclaim our deflated idealism, lest our unfulfilled longings congeal into a deathly despair that incarnates its fears. Perhaps we underestimated the extent of our woundedness and the complexity of the task before us. We miscalculated the extent that spatial, social, developmental and economic imprints of our inherited historical injustice, along with deeply entrenched mind-sets that afflict us all, would be perennial competitors with our idealism.

Despite our many stumbles and the multiplicity of difficulties that continue to confront us, our collective self-interest and the enduring debt to future South Africans compel us to choose principle over expediency, hope over despair and idealism over cynicism. Though the full manifestation of the Rainbow Nation remains yet a promise unfulfilled, let us reclaim our idealism, taking heed the counsel of history that instructs that great nations are not made in a day. Not a few, like us, were forged in the fiery furnace of bitter adversity.

Let us remember once more the grandeur of our destiny in the grand drama of history. That of demonstrating a venerable ideal, for the witness of all posterity. The sacred promise that a diverse people can indeed unite!

Can a house so acutely divided long endure?

“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25)

These words were first spoken two thousand years ago by Jesus of Nazareth as a response to His detractors who, in a failed attempt to discredit Him, accused Him of casting out demons by Beelzebub the prince of demons. The subtext being that even Satan understood this principle. The great American president Abraham Lincoln was to repeat them in 1858 to highlight the untenable continuation of a half slave owning and non-slave owning United States of America, ideas that would be consummated by blood. Approaching twenty years since the advent of democracy, our hope to endure and prosper well into the twentieth century and beyond would be well served by hearkening to the same message: a house divided cannot stand!

Our country faces no greater challenge to its unity, cohesion and enduring prosperity than the gnawing spectre of racism. Perhaps this ought not be too surprising given stubborn, subterranean and often unchecked beliefs in the superiority of the white race, which had earlier found expression in apartheid. 

This iniquitous system which catapulted the national party to power in 1948, had been seen by some as an “ingenious” solution to the “native question”, which had troubled man of such intellectual dexterity as General JC Smuts who simply could not fathom the thought that South Africans of African descent could live side by side with their white counterparts, in a environment of mutual respect, equality and citizenship. 

No longer able to contain his exasperation, Smuts once confessed, “When I consider the political future of the natives in South Africa I must say that I look into the shadows and darkness, and then I feel inclined to shift the intolerable burden of solving that sphinx problem to the ampler shoulders and stronger brains of the future“. 

Feeling the burden of this “sphinx problem”, John Merriman, the last Prime Minister of the Cape Colony before the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, had earlier lamented, “I wish we had no black men in South Africa”. Seeing as Providence had so determined, he had to concede with these ominously prescient words that ignoring it would be “to build on a volcano, the suppressed force of which must some day burst forth in a destroying flood, as history warns us it has always done.” 

Under the scheme of apartheid, black South Africans would be given the “privilege” of self-governance in their own reserves where they would ostensibly enjoy the privileges of citizenship governed by their own “people” by their own customs. The Verwoerdian vision captured the imagination of the times. It seemed an elegant way of dealing with the nagging problem, while simultaneously deftly sidestepping the gnawing moral pitfalls, under the pretext of preserving black culture and autonomy. 

Of course black South Africans were not so simple as to overlook the obvious bigotry, refusing to be duped by this show of “graciousness”. They rightfully resisted, reluctantly resorting to a decades-long armed struggle, having despaired of the efficacy of peaceful means. Though a full-blown civil war would be averted, violent racial tension made the country a difficult place in which to live. The pressure of the consequent civil unrest, economic and sports sanctions as well as the stigma of the country’s pariah status, culminated in the ineluctable dawn of the democratic era, a “miracle” that rightly brought the country into the gaze of an admiring global community. 

Without taking anything way from the “rainbow moment”, with hindsight it seems the change was brought about largely by pragmatism than any sense of contrition over the immorality of apartheid. Evolving western views on racism had given rise to intensified international sanctions against the country, effectively crippling its economy, which was a crucial factor in the eventual capitulation. 

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 also aided matters. It had given tactical, moral and financial support to the liberation effort. Its demise therefore allayed concerns about the imminence of a dreaded communist revolution, which had served as what some consider as merely a pretext to cover what was otherwise a visceral aversion to democratic reforms. Negotiations could therefore commence in earnest.

An assessment of race relations twenty years later reflects sporadic improvements but leaves much to be desired in light of the grandeur of the idea of the rainbow nation. Some might cynically contend that we have seen nothing more than cosmetic changes from the days of our dark past. Changes that appear at times more induced than embraced and usually not without much resentment from largely unwilling protagonists. Indeed, much of our inter-racial engagement continues to be characterised by suspicion, distrust, smouldering resentment, scarcely concealed condescension, exclusion and forced smiles. The ideal of harmonious, deep and equitable cross-racial relationships remains largely a dream deferred. 

The roots and the nature of racism in South Africa are highly complex, and a view that purports a complete understanding can rightly be considered presumptuous. Equally, it would be disingenuous equating racism to the unpardonable sin or one that every white South African suffers from. Certainly any attempts to ascribe moral superiority to any people group by virtue of its standing on this question would be duplicitous. Indeed, the honest among us will find it difficult to dispute the biblical proclamation, “there is no difference, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. 

It is not my thesis here that this is the only or even necessarily the greatest problem facing South Africa today. It is only one of the many challenges we face. Nevertheless, it is well within our collective interests to remain indefatigable in contending with injustice wherever and whenever it surfaces, particularly when its persistence imperils the hope of realising an idea so core to our incipient national identity - that of the rainbow nation, one on which many have sadly long despaired, considering it farcical and a cruel illusion in the face of persisting racism. 

It could be argued that in dealing with racism, we have fallen prey to the error of presuming that the abrogation of apartheid laws marked its end in South Africa. It is not uncommon hearing from proponents of this line of reasoning repeated appeals for black people to move on and leave the past behind. While a forward-looking orientation is crucial to our progress as a nation, this should not amount to a failure to deal with present realities, rooted in our fractious past. Indeed, the nurtured and oft-unchallenged notion of the supposed inherent superiority of white people, explained by nothing other their whiteness, is a present and not a past reality. It can only be for our collective benefit to lay the proverbial axe to the root. 

A deeper reflection on racism illuminates a condition with roots common to all humanity. To varying degrees, we are all given to the universal vice of prejudice, founded, among other things, on fear. Fear that we are not quite adequate and that we will one day be found out. A fear that has many faces, not least a desire to portray an imagined sense of superiority over the next person. Translated into a people group in relation to another, we call this racism. Accordingly, the origins of racism, as it came to be experienced in South Africa, found spurious justification from theological, scientific and cultural anchors respectively through passing of various historical epochs. 

Self-serving interpretations of scripture sought to portray black people, the putative descendents of Ham, even with the tenuous biblical substantiation, as a cursed race and therefore subject to subservience and subjugation. This was further conflated with a twisted version of Calvinism that mischievously condemned black people as irredeemably predestined for perdition. The advent of rationalism and the concomitant cultural shift away from biblical Christianity came to weaken reliance on biblical authority. A new intellectual anchor needed to be found. This brought into play Darwin’s theory of natural selection. 

Charles Darwin’s seminal work, tellingly entitled “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, came to take central stage in defining human consciousness, according to which it seemed an acceptable proposition in Western popular thought to consider black people as inferior to their white counterparts, owing to a lower place on the supposed evolutionary scale. After all, so the argument went, Europeans were streets ahead in technological and cultural sophistication. This coincided with the enslavement of black people, colonialism and apartheid. All of which had the added consequence of adversely shaping the mind of both actors, entrenching habits of superiority and subservience that served to reinforce the original lie and thus promoting a pernicious vicious cycle.

Of course the test of time would betray these arguments, robbing them of their prominence in mainstream Western consciousness. They would be driven to the fringes of society and at times the shadows, where they would continue to lurk unnoticed. It is curious that despite the obvious injustice, particularly in a culture supposedly steeped in Judeo-Christian morality, the change of mind came only after much resistance, bloodshed and time. The moral authority, tenacity and sometimes militancy of such giants as Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela played a pivotal role in raising the profile of the injustice of racism and thus reshaping Western popular opinion, with South African being among the last bastions of institutionalised racism. 

My contention here rests not on a belief in uniformity for its own sake. I contend rather for the inherent equality in dignity and worth of all human beings. Our histories that were nurtured continents apart by vastly divergent exigencies make our differences unavoidable. Rather than a limitation, this is a strength that contributes to the wealth and vibrancy of our nation. The challenge and opportunity before us is to harness the latent treasures of our rich diversity and forge them into a competitive advantage that makes us a cohesive and unstoppable force in global business, the arts, engineering, science, sports, technology and international relations. 

President JC Smuts, a brilliant man by all accounts, with uncharacteristic cowardice and myopia, opted to transfer the resolution of our inter-racial challenges to the “ampler shoulders and stronger brains of future”. How dearly we have all paid for his abdication of responsibility! In taking up his challenge however, we must accept that the full realisation of the boundless potential of our rainbow nation requires for the perennial issue of racism to be finally laid to rest. We owe our progeny no less! 

Without burdening each other with the overwhelming weight of guilt, we do well to remember that apartheid was merely a fruit of a tree that remains with us. Its end was a commendable start. Nevertheless, we remain with the arduous task of dealing with its resilient progenitor, racism. This task can only begin with an acknowledgement of its existence, a simple proposition that has so far proven surprisingly illusive. 

What is morality?

Perusing any contemporary newspaper should remove any lingering doubts that human beings, regardless of their professed positions on theism, remain ineradicable moralists. We must confess to be uniformly given to moralizing. At the core of a typical political story is, invariably, a multiplicity of usually unquestioned underlying moral judgments with which both journalists and readers alike instinctively concur. 

Corruption is a subject on which South Africans have become painfully conversant in recent times. Try as we might, for many of us a presidential homestead to the value of R200million, at tax payers expense, amidst a sea of poverty, is an idea we find simply irreconcilably repugnant.

With morality evidently as intrinsic to being human as it seems to be, one cannot help but be provoked by a jarring question attributed to one of our prominent politicians, whom a Sunday Newspaper story reports as having asked, "what is morality?"

The question is troubling at first. After all if a person in a position of such public trust confesses ignorance to this fundamental question, what hope is there for our politics? Such concerns, which I share, only betray our status as inveterate moralists. Upon deeper reflection the question becomes deceptively profound, surprisingly honest and a logical conclusion to what many consider a coherent worldview. 

Indeed, for evolved molecules and free moral agents that we purportedly are, the underlying question suddenly becomes a reasonable one. Namely, the question of what is morally right or wrong must necessarily be a personal one. It is rightly unjustifiable for a people of intrinsically equal value and worth to ascribe their moral standards to the rest of humanity. 

So, rightly we should ask, who conferred up them that authority? 

Someone might argue that what we regard as morality is simply a social contract. In other words morality consists of the evolution of values that a society has incrementally embraced through time, driven by mutual self-interest, towards collective survival.

The same question had to be contemplated by the victorious Allied forces in their dealings with a conquered Nazi Germany, relating specifically to the chilling spectre of the holocaust. Nazi Germany, whether passively or actively, collectively endorsed the wholesale slaughter of countless fellow human beings who committed no crime other than to be born into a particular ethnic community. It is worth highlighting here that those gruesome acts that constitute the holocaust occurred in a society that had for decades longed for a way of contending with the irritatingly persistent Jewish question, and thus Hitler’s “final solution” found resonance with what had become morally numb society. 

During the famous Nuremberg trials, the Allies were presented with the troublesome matter of bringing to judgment people who acted not only in concert with societal norms but in fact within the laws of their land. In convicting the Nazi officials, they were in fact making a profound statement on morality, namely, there is a standard of morality that transcends both societal norms and laws. Though they might not have been quite able to fathom it, its reality was so immanent as to be impossible to deny. Though not intending to, they were essentially compelled to unwittingly present a penetrating debunking of the social contract argument. That is, there is more to morality than merely societal norms and laws.

This leaves us face to face with a troubling conundrum. That we are moral, we cannot truthfully deny. Indeed, when we learn, as we commonly do, that one of our politicians has misappropriated public funds, a visceral sense of injustice wells up inside of us that seems to go exceedingly beyond philosophical reasoning. Invariably, we become deeply overcome by a righteous indignation by the brazen dishonesty. Instinctively, in the process, we make what are undeniable moral judgments. This immediately places us on a pedestal that presumes universality to our supposed personal moral standards that we feel at liberty to indiscriminately use to judge politicians, who may not even share them!

This conundrum leaves us with the same conclusion implied by the verdicts of the Nuremberg trials, that there exists such a thing as transcendent morality that is profoundly visceral and self-evident. If we accept morality to be necessarily personal, the question becomes who is this person whose moral values we seem to irresistibly gravitate to? Whoever this person is, they must possess intrinsically superior worth and value than all human beings. Otherwise, how else can they justifiably command a universal obligation to their personal moral standards? 

The bible reveals the identity of whom Greek philosophers of antiquity called the "Unmoved mover" as possessing the mysterious appellation: I AM. The name, speaks much about His nature, that of one who is unbound by time, eternally present and personal. Scripture reveals Him as just and untouched by corruption of any kind and in fact untouchable by it, the very embodiment of those timeless virtues that have bound nations for time immemorial, without which they seem irrevocably destined for tragic disintegration.

We are His offspring and thus possess remnants of His personal attributes from which we remain yet unable to entirely extricate ourselves, even though the grotesque imprimatur of sin continues to mar us. His holiness precludes Him from touching what is corrupt, which has accordingly created an infinite chasm between Him and us, his prodigal offspring. In the absence of this vital connection, life makes a discordant sound that leaves us helplessly aware that things are not quite as they ought to be. Though in times past He remained hid from his wayward offspring, compelled by His essence, love, on the cross he paid the penalty for our gnawing guilt. To nations therefore, the divine invitation resounds with echoes of infinite mercy, it speaks and will not be silenced: “Look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:22)

Rebuilding a nation - claiming our place among the great nations of the earth

Lucifer has been in the business of troubling the nations for time immemorial. No wonder it was said concerning him: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12-2). How eagerly the nations await that prophetic demise! Precisely because none has been left untouched by the reach of his ravenous tyranny. The prophet Isaiah offers a promise of hope through the redeemed, that “they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations” (Isaiah 61:4). The unrelenting question remains, how can this be done for South Africa?

The chronology of South Africa, a land of unmatched beauty, with broad, sunlit and open spaces, clear blue skies and smiling faces, catalogues a litany of political, cultural and ideological contestation, leaving a bitter trail of conquest and bloodshed. A glance across the horizon of its troubled history brings to mind images of scuffles between Dutch and the Khoisan, the Xhosa and the Khoisan, colonisation by the Dutch and counter annexation by the British, series of frontier wars, many internecine and highly distressing tribal wars, notably the infamous Mfecane instigated by bellicose Zulu warrior-king, Shaka, two bitter Anglo Boer Wars and finally the abhorrent system of institutionalised racial domination of apartheid. Indeed, one finds little reason to disagree with the British missionary Mary Moffat, who over 200 years ago lamented, “it requires some little fortitude to live at rest in such a tumultuous land”. Even in our day, her words continue to find unsavoury resonance with many South Africans. 

In its present form, it is a relatively young nation, born 17 years ago in 1994. Its history books attest the reality of its fierce contestation, where one group or the other, has found it to their advantage at sundry times to revise the story of its origin. Nowhere is this more applicable than the date of the first arrival of Bantu South Africans, the largest cultural group, one that was preceded by the Khoisan by many centuries. The quest to attain what semblance of legitimacy possible was well served by the attempt at historical revisionism that sought to date this arrival centuries later. 

While the exact date of arrival of the Bantu is unclear, archaeological evidence points to their presence in South Africa as early as 700AD. The landing of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, soon followed by the first crop of Malays in 1657, the British in 1795, with Indian and Chinese immigrants following later, would later give rise to the apt appellation, the "Rainbow Nation". Rather than benefiting from the multiplicity of advantages associated with multiethnicity, seen in such nations as the US, this diversity precipitated a fractious epoch in the history of our country that culminated in the Apartheid system, which left a deeply imbedded socio-economic wound. 

The advent of democracy in 1994 brought with it waves of hope for the country in general and the previously oppressed majority in particular. Hope that the democratic era would erase the fruit of centuries of hatred and injustice, ushering an era of freedom, peace and prosperity. The entire nation, if not the world, could hardly resist being caught up in raptures of euphoric optimism about the prospect of this “miracle” nation. A survey of the national mood 18 years down the road paints a picture of nation overcome by a growing restless angst, smouldering disillusionment and increasingly common outbursts of public indignation and violence, a language that is well entrenched in the national psyche, bringing to mind Langston Hughes poem, The Dream Deferred: 

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Rather than steady progress towards the hoped-for utopian ideal, the journey has been rocky, fraught with disappointment and a multitude of snares. The reasons are complex, including a combination of unrealistic expectations about the cost of true progress and the time it takes to build great nations. This notwithstanding, the post apartheid ANC government, hamstrung by its own misdemeanours, reminiscent of countless liberation movements across the world, has sadly been an impediment rather than an aid to progress. Rampant corruption, poor leadership and maladministration have added to the ills of apartheid such that the convenient excuse of blaming apartheid has begun to lose some of its erstwhile lustre. 

Our generation is therefore faced with formidable social, political and economic challenges to which we are called to find answers that have so far eluded the present generation of leaders. An inexhaustive list thereof includes: 

• Economic inequalities 
• Insufficient social cohesion 
• Endemic corruption and maladministration 
• Poverty and unemployment 
• Education and skills crisis 
• Crime 
• Infrastructure backlogs 
• A growing lawlessness 

The challenges are undeniably formidable; nevertheless we draw much hope from unshakeable truth encapsulated in the "great and precious promises" by which the natural is transcended. Among which is the assurance that authority over the nations is no longer with Lucifer, the destroyer of nations. The biblical invitation to the Son, chronicled in the old covenant is so captured:

“Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession”. (Psalms 2:8)

The Father, in his infinite faithfulness, has been true to His promise, giving the promised nations to the Son who has relinquished them with His blood from the rapacious grasp of the Satan. Accordingly, He says to His ecclesia:

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you”. (Matthew 28:18)

We are therefore assured that for the Lord Jesus and his strategy, the church, victory is inevitable. (The English word “church” is a translation of the Greek word “ecclesia”, which incidentally has nothing to do with a building but refers to “those called out to rule.”) This unshakeable conviction is rooted in our knowledge of the Lord who cannot lie and to whom nothing is too difficult, whose promise to us continues to speak:

“ I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”. (Matthew 16:18)

This scripture speaks of the inexorable but imperfect advance of the church through history and the certainty of its ultimate defeat of the enemy. Rather than joining the growing ranks of the disillusioned, with hearts filled with unshakable faith, let us strengthen our hands to work. Our work must be strategic, with future generations firmly in our minds involving the following:

1. Rebuilding the family. The family as the first institution established by God and the most foundational building block of any nation must be restored. It is here where identity and self worth are forged. It is in the family where we receive our value system and learn how to relate to other human beings. No nation can be enduringly great with a broken family system because all politicians, teachers, trade unionists and businessmen come from a family. When the family is functional, there is no stopping a nation. Malachi 4: 4-5 reads:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

Sadly, broken families characterised by fatherlessness litter the streets of our beautiful nation, with evidence of the promised curse all too apparent. If you do not believe me, I invite you to peruse any newspaper in South Africa. Let us allow therefore, God to plant in each of our hearts a vision of prosperous families across the nation, beginning with our own.

2. Rediscover the apostolic mandate given to the church. The mandate given to the church is simple: “make disciples of all nations”. There is much that can be said about the institutional church and its role, which at times has been of regrettable complicity with the tyranny of apartheid. It is a colourful tale with much that is noble and ignoble, whose glorious true colours were glowingly manifest during the very cavernous sunset years of apartheid and the transition into the “New South Africa”. Those were treacherous years of great heartache and uncertainty, with an omnipresent threat of civil war that cut an unnerving feature over the horizon, casting the nation into a perpetual state of anxiety. 

The church led the charge of praying for the troubled nation, storming the proverbial gates of heaven and averting what appeared certain catastrophe. Men such as Ray McCauley, among many others, rose to the occasion showing leadership that secures their place among the pantheon of great South African leaders. The church acted, as the church should and the nation rejoiced. 

Sadly, the post-apartheid era gave way to an inward focus and a preoccupation with the spirit of the age, aptly captured by Francis Schaeffer as the pursuit of “personal peace and prosperity”. Predictably, this coincided with an inevitable national moral decline because when the church withdraws, the nations cannot but travail. When the church ought to have occupied itself with discipling a new generation of South Africans - men and women with the solid moral character and vision such as was required to lead the quest of restoring a country still reeling from the effects of an unjust system - it turned rather to a ‘self-help’ gospel, which placed an inordinate emphasis on material enrichment and personal comfort for the individual believer, with out the concomitant regard to his heavenly responsibilities. 

It tragically blended, as such, with a culture preoccupied with self-enrichment at any cost. This meant that the army of morally upright and principled future leaders that should have flowed from the church into education, politics, business, nursing, the family and every arena of human endeavour were tragically no where to be found. It is axiomatic that nature abhors a vacuum. Men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, therefore duly filled the vacuum and so the nation travails.

3. We must see our vocation as a holy calling from God and make it a life long ambition to discover the applicability of God’s word in every facet of it. The pursuit of soul- winning in the marketplace must be complemented by the application of God’s way and will in the actual content of work. Some may be called to demonstrate what a kingdom business looks, others of may be called to shape the arts, the media and education. Perhaps you might be a part of a new generation of godly politicians to provide visionary, integrous and competent leadership to our communities.

4. We must embrace the biblical call to be disciples of Christ first and then disciplers of nations. A disciple is a disciplined learner, one who is on a lifelong journey toward mastering those truths that have truly captured their heart. In all of history, those who change the world for better or worse invariably are disciples of someone. Examples include the likes of Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Buddha, Mohammed and others. Jesus distinguishes Himself from anyone in history, in that He did not merely claim to show us the way, the truth and the life, but declared Himself the embodiment of these realities, proving this by His unprecedented and unmatched resurrection from the dead. In heeding His commission, we must embrace a vision of discipleship that seeks to affect not only individuals but also nations. We must seek to be catalysts of change who shape the institutional infrastructure of our nation, affecting what it values, how it thinks and operates for generations to come. 

Once again the clouds have begun to gather around the horizon, not unlike numerous moments in our history. The advance of corrupt and wicked men seems inexorable. Our families and schools seem a wasteland. We scour the horizon in vain for the emergence of leaders to guide us to a hopeful tomorrow. Our search should look no further than ourselves, as the church of Jesus Christ. For we have been empowered and entrusted with the sacred task of stewarding the nations. The nations will thrive or prosper to the extent of our faithfulness to this holy stewardship and no further. With and for us is the victorious One whose death on the Cross has earned Him the supreme title: Lord of heaven and earth. Also with and in us is the same Spirit who once upon a time hovered upon a dark and formless planet, far from being daunted by the chaos that was before Him, He soon released a gush of power that created the orderly planet we have come to know. As those whose hope is drawn not from this world and its passing comforts and pleasures, let us dust ourselves from our slumber and prepare for a heavenly mission that cannot fail, “For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14)

The (im)morality of quantitative easing

With the Euro and US economies continuing to sputter, whispers of Quantitative Easing (QE) have once again consumed the financial media. It is hardly encouraging that, in their recent pronouncements, the Governor of the New York Federal Reserve, various senior IMF officials among other respectable figures have given further credence to these discomfiting mutterings. Even more worrying is what appears a prevailing indifference to glaring moral and practical problems associated with the instrument. 

QE is simply the purchase of outstanding national debt by a country’s Central Bank, an instrument that is becoming a worryingly common feature of the contemporary post-financial crisis global economic landscape. It is hardly a secret that it is a poorly disguised method of printing money, an action that ironically, in the not-too-distant past, could have provoked an avalanche of sanctimonious lectures if those from the developing world had taken such actions. We can be thankful, however, that the South African Reserve Bank is constitutionally precluded from participating in this regrettable procession and so we can consider ourselves safe for now.

The lessons of the recent financial crisis, consisting in the heavy price that families across the world have paid in mass retrenchments, as a result of certain “innovations” in mortgage structuring, are seemingly yet to be fully grasped. The desire for economic and social advancement is a divinely endowed human instinct. When this instinct, however, is unhinged from common sense and the truth, problems are usually not too far away. Though they may be delayed, we can be assured of their certainty. The fall of man and his perennial pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil, a pursuit for knowledge from places either than its true source, has meant that since the fall of man, problems have become the norm rather the exception across the spectrum of history. 

It might be of benefit therefore to occasionally return to elementary principles that should otherwise be common sense. This could be no truer than in the case of money, where it seems those who are called to be stewards thereof, for the benefit of society, have taken a veritable flight to irrationality. We must remember that modern fiat money, that has become an accepted medium of exchange and store of value, carries negligible inherent value apart from the worth imputed to it by those who use it to exchange goods and services. In other words a hundred Rand note has no greater value than what you and I have ascribed to it. 

We communicate this value through the quality or quantity of goods or services we exchange it for. The real value resides not with the money but with the underlying goods and services underpinning it. This is in contrast to a bygone era when units of money had inherent value. Such as when coins were alloys of actual silver, gold and other precious metals. The entire supply of Rands in South Africa can therefore only be a representation of the goods and services it produces, in condensed form. 

The modern state, among its many tricks, has conferred upon itself the sole legal right of creating fiat money. That is why using other currencies such as the US dollar is forbidden in South Africa. Of course, there are practical reasons for this, such as the need to effectively control and manage a country's financial system. Though it may be so, we should not forget that it is a sacred trust. The enormity of this trust is often underestimated. It consists in the fact that the state has the legal right to decimate, if it so wishes, years of our earthly labours, represented by the wealth stored in its currency, if it chooses to employ injudicious monetary practices such as QE. Thankfully, while we may have much room for disgruntlement with other organs of state, as far as the so-called “financial cluster”, the same is hardly applicable. This discussion is mainly relevant to our US, British and European counterparts and we would be wise to lead in this regard rather than to follow, as has been the historical pattern.

The financial crisis has upended our understanding of the world and who knows what else is to follow? We could even be in the cusp of a generational shift in the entire structure of the global political economy. Nevertheless, I will leave that discussion for another time. For now, what we see are anaemic European and American economies, the erstwhile engine rooms of global growth. China appears to have effectively decoupled from its over dependence on Western demand. It continues to face, however, the challenge of facilitating an internal cultural change from extreme thrift towards greater consumption orientation, which is no mean task considering the famous frugality of its people. Along with its ascent, it is pulling economies of the resource rich world, many of which are located in the developing world, to similarly unprecedented economic heights. 

Commensurately, the developed world faces economic challenges of sphinx proportions. The long rumoured “double-dip” recession has finally arrived in many of these countries and seems to have found a semi-permanent home. Rising or stubborn unemployment, along with the inevitable social consternation continues to confound the great minds of the West. The consequent low demand for goods and services from its cash strapped citizens has led to an epoch of unprecedented low inflation. Eager to assuage the increasingly restless masses, not to mention the unquenchable urge to hold on to office, in desperation, anything that appears vaguely likely to ameliorate this dilemma is heartily embraced by hapless politicians. The rising prominence of QE occurs amid such conditions. Its proponents continue to contend that it is a harmless instrument in the quiver of Central Bankers (and of course, who are we to argue with lofty Central Bankers?). After all, in such a deflationary environment, what danger can it amount to?

While this consistently pronounced line of reasoning has a spurious ring of truth to it, it misses a fundamental point: the morality (or the lack thereof) of QE. To talk of the purchase of government debt by Central Banks is a misnomer, particularly when the money is created from nothing. There is no cost to the purchaser in this case, beyond that of paper and the printing press. This renders the word “purchase” deceptive because “purchase” normally implies a cost to the purchaser, which in this case is negligible. Power is therefore assumed by concerned Central Banks of creating value out of nothing. This, of course, cannot be possible because value cannot be instantaneously manufactured out of nothing, unless it is misappropriated from elsewhere. In this case, the value is the compressed ingenuity, effort and time stored in the underlying assets represented by the currency. The real losers here are those have been prudent enough to save their hard-earned income. This places in context German antipathy to talks of QE by the EU, with good reason!

A relevant question that might be asked is why we are yet to see rampant inflation associated with excessive money supply, as a result of QE. The answer lies in the weak demand conditions on the ground, due to consumer over indebtedness, that have led to commensurately poor growth prospects for main street businesses. The banks have therefore been unwilling to lend in such conditions, choosing to rather hoard their stacks of dollars, pounds and Euros. So it may be premature concluding that the current environment of benign inflation will persist indefinitely. 

There is much that is being said about the possible effects of QE, such as whether or not it is the panacea to well documented Western economic travails, among other fallacies. In this regard history offers some noteworthy lessons, not least the Japanese experience that we have not explored. Nevertheless, while this is an important discussion that warrants continued assessment, not enough is being said about the morality of this instrument. I find this particularly troublesome, considering how fundamental this issue is. In any other situation we would instinctively frown at anyone who takes what is not his or hers, without permission and without paying for it. I’m not sure why it should be any different with QE.