Solutions With David Ansara

How do we build a sustainable social order in South Africa? In this episode of the Solutions With David Ansara podcast, I speak with Russell Lamberti, Chief Economist at Sakeliga, about cultural communities in South Africa.  

Russell and I analyse the causes and consequences of state failure in South Africa. How do we preserve liberty, safety and prosperity for South Africans when the state is failing to maintain its basic duties and obligations towards us as citizens?

Russell advocates for high degrees of decentralisation, and a federal model of governance. The current unitary system is too centralized, and ineffective at managing the various conflicting needs of a heterogenous society, he says.   

We also unpack the idea of cultural communities in South Africa. How compatible are these concepts of group identity with an individual rights framework, I ask?  

TIMESTAMPS  

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In this episode of the Solutions With David Ansara podcast, I speak with John Endres and Frans Cronje – the incoming and outgoing CEOs of the Institute of Race Relations – about the "next transition" in South African politics, and what this means for the future of the country.  

We discuss the ongoing decline of the ANC, first predicted by the IRR in 2012, and how this will define SA politics in the run-up to the national and provincial elections in 2024.   

Will the various opposition parties be able to put aside their differences and work together to form a broad front against the ANC and the EFF, I ask?  How will this affect service delivery across the country and how should individuals and communities respond to this interregnum? 

We also explore the IRR's mission of advancing classical liberalism in South Africa, and its role in fighting the "battle of ideas".

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WATCH this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nouCtKsiebc

This week, South Africa concluded one of the most consequential elections of the democratic era. 

In this episode of Solutions With David Ansara, I unpack the election results – and their impact on the future of South African politics – with Gabriel Crouse of the Institute of Race Relations.   

TIMESTAMPS  

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South Africa's Constitution is widely lauded, but how strong is constitutional democracy and the rule of law in SA?  

In this episode of Solutions With David Ansara, I speak with Advocate Mark Oppenheimer of the Johannesburg Bar about defending South Africa's Constitution.   

We discuss Mark's new podcast, Constitutional Landmarks, which explores the most significant judgements handed down by the ConCourt since its inception, including the Nkandla judgement against former president Jacob Zuma, the abolition of the death penalty, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), gay marriage, and access to HIV/AIDS treatment.

Mark and I discuss the origins of the Constitution, which is the product of a negotiated political settlement between the outgoing Apartheid regime and the incoming ANC government. As a result, the final document became something of a patchwork of compromises and political agreements.

Mark points out that one of the founding values of the Constitution is non-racialism: "The original meaning of the term is that you don't allocate burdens and benefits on the basis of race, he says. "People ought to be judged on the content of their character and not the colour of their skin."  

However, Mark notes that the principle of non-racialism is often contradicted by government policy and social behaviour. He highlights the recent elections for the Legal Practitioners' Council, the body that runs his profession, where certain seats were allocated on the grounds of race. This has resulted in black female candidates being removed from their seats for being 'overly-represented'. "The Constitution promises certain things, but as a society we still need to work quite hard to ensure that those are provided," Mark says.

We also discuss the notion of redress for past wrongs, and the folly of the proposed amendments to section 25 of the Constitution (the Property Rights Clause), as well as whether the Truth and Reconciliation Commission achieved a just outcome for victims of gross human rights violations.  

How do we as ordinary citizens ensure that we uphold the values of the Constitution, I ask? 

Protecting and upholding constitutional principles requires active citizens bringing cases before the Constitutional Court, Mark says. NGOs and other interested parties can do this, but litigation is expensive. Crowdfunding initiatives such as those run by organisations like the Institute of Race Relations and Afriforum can do a lot to shape our constitutional framework, he says.  

Mark notes that a Constitution is not simply a piece of paper. "It's not only about rights, it's a culture," he says. This requires us to hold government to account and ensure that our rights are protected. "The price of freedom is constant vigilance," he says. "If you do nothing, then tyranny will prevail."

TIMESTAMPS  

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RESOURCES

SUBSCRIBE to 'Constitutional Landmarks' on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ConstitutionalLandmarks 

LISTEN on your preferred podcast app: https://anchor.fm/constitutional-landmarks

How do we solve South Africa's violent crime problem in the absence of a capable police service? In this episode of 'Solutions With David Ansara' I speak with Ian Cameron, a community safety specialist with Action Society, a civil society organisation dedicated to improving safety and security in South Africa. We start the conversation with a frank assessment of the South African Police Service, an institution in rapid decline. 

Starved of resources and subjected to political interference, the police are unable to contain the growing epidemic of violence in our society. Although many good cops remain in the service, they are overwhelmed, under-resourced and poorly led. 

This lack of capacity is evidenced by the almost complete breakdown in the SAPS’ DNA registry, which currently has a backlog of over 300,000 cases. As a consequence, many cases of sexual violence and murder have not been prosecuted. 

The breakdown in law and order reached its zenith in July 2021, when riots swept through KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Ian notes that well-armed community safety groups were critical in preventing even more damage and chaos, and offers some practical advice for coordinating voluntary safety structures at the community level. 

How do we avoid a descent into vigilantism, I ask? Ian says that legislation is in place which governs the conduct of community groups and that these act as a necessary check on excessive actions, but more needs to be done extend and strengthen this governance framework. 

Ian’s solution to our law and order problem is to decentralise policing to the provincial and local level. The Western Cape could serve as a model case of devolved policing, he says, given the rampant violence in areas such as Grassy Park in Cape Town, which has the highest citizen-to-police ratio than in the country.

Law and order is the bedrock of a free and prosperous society. We cannot wait for politicians to change course. We must adopt an ethos of personal responsibility and take the safety of our families and communities into our own hands. 

TIMESTAMPS   

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RESOURCES   

Action Society: https://actionsociety.co.za/  

Firearms.co.za: https://firearms.co.za/  

#SafeCitizen campaign: https://www.safecitizen.co.za/

South Africa's economy is flatlining. How do we kick-start economic activity to ensure higher levels of investment and growth?   

In this episode of the Solutions With David Ansara podcast, I speak to Dawie Roodt, Chief Economist and Director of the Efficient Group, about how to fix South Africa's ailing economy.

Dawie and I analyse the causes of South Africa's recent decline, which has more to do with political factors than economic ones: the outsized influence of the Tripartite Alliance on labour policy; the damaging effects of the Expropriation Without Compensation (EWC) debate on investor sentiment; the risk of National Health Insurance (NHI), which would crowd out private medical savings; and many other harmful policies.

Dawie is critical of the much-vaunted idea of the 'developmental state', which is premised on an efficient and effective civil service that South Africa simply does not have.  The growth in the size and scope of the state has merely facilitated patronage distribution and corruption, Dawie argues.

Government has also attempted to widen South Africa's social security net, particularly during the pandemic, which has resulted in severe problems for the country's fiscal accounts, with government expenditure far exceeding revenue collection. Consequently, public debt is projected to balloon to 80% of GDP.  

There are a few ways that South Africa can get out of its current debt spiral: we can cut our way out (austerity); we can increase taxes; we can grow our way out; or we can inflate our debt away by eroding the value of the currency (watch out for growing political pressure on the Reserve Bank to loosen monetary policy). High inflation will be devastating to savers and the poor in South Africa, he argues.   

What would Dawie do if he were in charge of economic policy, I ask? Simple. He would liberalise the labour market, remove minimum wages, guarantee property rights, abolish BEE and sell off state-owned enterprises.  

Dawie also offers some advice for South Africans looking to protect their income and their assets from state failure, including (legally) minimising your tax exposure, and providing services that the state is no longer able to provide, such as education and infrastructure.  

There are many areas of the global economy that offer significant upside, he says. These include emerging opportunities in the technology sector, offshore investments, and cryptocurrencies.  

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Is the world confronting an illiberal moment?   

Many democratic societies are facing challenges from both the left and right against the very idea of liberal democracy itself.   

At the same time, governments around the world have adopted extraordinary powers in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.   

Can liberalism survive these threats?  In this week’s episode of the Solutions With David Ansara podcast I speak to legal researcher and commentator, Martin van Staden of Sakeliga, about the state of liberalism today.   

Liberals believe in the timeless principles put forward by John Locke, John Stuart Mill and other thinkers several hundred years ago: freedom of the individual, a market economy, the rule of law, free expression and limited government.   

The world may have changed in many respects, but these principles offer a timeless set of tools with which to organise our political arrangements.   Fundamentally, liberalism deals with the issue of coercion and the appropriate role of the state. It is not a doctrine or a dogma: it is an approach that prioritises freedom.   

Martin and I discuss why governments should not mandate their citizens to get the Covid-19 vaccine. We both agree that getting the jab is a good idea, we just don’t think that anybody should be forced by the state or a third party to be vaccinated against their will. This opposition is grounded on the respect for bodily integrity.  We also discuss the importance of the rule of law, why it is different to “the rule of man”, and also reflect on the relationship between individuals and groups.   

We conclude the discussion with an examination of liberalism here in South Africa. Liberalism is one of the oldest political traditions in South Africa, but it has always been caught between the “two fires” of competing nationalisms.   

Although there have been many reversals, Martin is relatively optimistic about the prospects for liberalism in SA and the world. The desire to be free is innate within us, and part of the human condition. "Freedom, once given, cannot be taken away,” he says.   

Caught between a resurgent left and a reactionary right, liberals have it hardest, but as the world becomes increasingly polarized between these two extremes, this is also a great opportunity for liberals to persuade and to educate. "Liberals believe in the persuasion society, not the permission society,” he notes.  

TIMESTAMPS  

(00:00) Intro

RESOURCES  

'The Liberal case against (vaccine) passports' by Martin van Staden (The Daily Friend, 11 Sept 2021): https://dailyfriend.co.za/2021/09/11/the-liberal-case-against-vaccine-passports-2/ 

'Failed Democracy: Can Conservatives Tell Liberals “We Told You So”?' by Martin van Staden (Rational Standard, 14 September 2021): https://rationalstandard.com/failed-democracy-can-conservatives-tell-liberals-we-told-you-so/

VIDEO

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