WHAT AN unadulterated pleasure it has been to watch ANC Youth League Presidentresident Julius Malema sulk and pout and kick and scream since he was so rudely booed at the SA Communist Party congress last week. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Needless to say he has managed to persuade one or other press club to organise a press conference for him tomorrow (Tuesday). It’s a sure way of getting all the media to focus one just one thing (him) as he tells us what he’s going to do about it. I would love not to send anyone to cover it but starving a publicity addict of oxygen isn’t something you can do piecemeal.

He will, at least, be direct. Which is more than President Jacob Zuma was when he spoke to the Communists on Saturday. I listened to every laboured word and I honestly couldn’t tell you whether he was criticisng the SACP or Malema. Maybe that’s politics. It isn’t leadership, unfortunately. This Alliance, no matter how often they will stand and swear it is hale and hearty, is headed for the rocks. The big question is when.

Another, of course, is what replaces it. For the one thing both the communists and the Malema crowd are saying is that they want to nationalise large swathes of our economy. It is pointless engaging them in ‘debate’ about it, or telling them how much it would cost or how little chance it would have of success. They are not doing it for the economics. It’s the politics. The power. What does business have by way of an answer?

At the moment, none. It can’t find an answer because it is looking at capitalism or the markets for one. Instead, it should simply be looking at democracy.

A democratic market economy, with democratic companies, would be more than a match for the nationalisers. What’s a democratic economy, I hear you cry. Well, it’s one in which the majority of actors in it have a real financial stake (beyond their jobs). And a democratic company would be the same. Workers should own at least 15 per cent of the companies they work in. It encourages greater buy-in from staff and stable shareholding. That allows for managers to concentrate on strategy and growth rather than quarterly returns to other shareholders they don’t have any kind of relationship with.

The Germans have union representatives on their boards, by law. Here we still cannot get our heads around the obvious truth that most of the time most people act in their own interests. If we give workers an interest in our companies they’ll protect them and God help anyone who tries to take them away, as the ANC Youth League, Cosatu and the SACP promise they will.

………………………………………….

I HAVE just spent a week in Cape Town, the first extended period I have spent there for years. I tell you, the place is sparkling. There’s no dirt on the streets, people look sharp and the Greenpoint soccer stadium for next year is just gorgeous. In comparison, Johannesburg is filthy and broken. Drive past Zoo Lake on a Monday morning for a real shock. Every time I remarked on what I saw of Cape Town the response was the same – the Democratic Alliance city and provincial administrations in Cape Town and Western Cape are working. As most ANC-run cities broadly subside and most DA-run ones broadly prosper, the political effect becomes a little like compound interest. You don’t notice it at first but after a while it really begins to matter. A lot. It’s about doing your job – everyone doing their jobs – properly. The ANC just can’t seem to make that happen.

……………………………………….

IT HAS been quite a year for Business Day. We have had redundancies and budget cuts and bonuses vanished. We have stopped publishing our monthly Exporter supplement and our shareholders recently brought the curtain down on The Weekender. 2009 can’t end too soon. 2010 will be better. Business Day is strong and making money and next year we plan to really jack up our digital side. From later this week, though, we slim down as usual for around a month during the festive period. Unless, like Tiger Woods, you are new to the human race and are still getting over it, may I wish, on behalf of us all at Business Day, you all — our readers and advertisers — a safe and happy holiday.

Cheers

endit

Popularity: 3% [?]