The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Glenn Ashton -
Apartheid South Africa was an arcanely bureaucratic, over regulated society. Through laws both petty and detailed, it regulated the lives of its citizens in ways that continue to affect us today. While we have cast off the chains of legalised racism we have not sworn off our national propensity to rely on centralised regulation through arcane legal structures to arrive at the collective goals we visualised when queueing to vote in 1994.
This reliance on the law, while perhaps necessary to...
Glenn Ashton -
Is President Jacob Zumas proposal to create the 'opportunity' for half a million jobs in South Africa over the next six months a goal that we all must embrace?
Perhaps the greatest risk South Africa faces is of the chasm between rich and poor widening to ever more extreme proportions, threatening to rend the fragile social fabric of our young nation. So how can we, as a nation, reduce the economic disparity in the most efficient manner?
Social polarisation through increased disparity...
America's General Motors filed for bankruptcy on 1 June 2009, and will be bailed out by the federal government, making the government a 60% shareholder in the company. The bailout is valued at US$30bn. The company is to be remodeled and emerge as a "new GM," which will be smaller. Thousands of GM jobs are on the line. Somewhat disappointingly, President Obama announced that "the federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most...
Saliem Fakir -
No sooner had Zuma confirmed his cabinet and a select few in the whining caucus already started complaining that industrial policy is best left to the private sector to sort out. All government needs to do is dish out the incentives, lower the taxes for exporters and ensure wage expectations are kept to the minimum.
So long as government does this, the private sector will do its level best to pick the winners. Such cynicism against government intervention must be met with...
