Civil society ensures protection from elite

26 April 2015 - 02:00 By Ann Crotty

Economic development must have been a doddle for the Europeans. They had almost free rein to plunder and pillage on a global scale in their search for resources and markets and, more significantly, they didn't have to worry about the restraints that come with democracy. Universal suffrage arrived in Europe almost 200 years after the Industrial Revolution started. For much of that time, or at least until the late 19th century, the elite were pretty much left to themselves to drive the process of creating wealth and deciding how that wealth would be divided.There was no democracy to give voice to competing claims. They were free of the restraints elites in a vibrant democracy find intrusive, ones that regulate how to treat employees, the community or the environment. And they certainly weren't subjected to tedious obligations to be accountable and transparent. By the time everyone could vote in Western Europe, the necessary institutions were firmly in place to manage competing claims while supporting economic growth.Much more difficult is 21st-century economic development - not the Singapore version but the democratic sort South Africa is trying, and often failing, to achieve. Here we have the equivalent of a circus act on steroids - the performer keeping the plates spinning while performing an appendectomy on himself. In recent weeks, many of the plates have been broken and the appendectomy halted while we wait for the lights to come back on.And all the time there's a watchful media keeping close tabs and providing constant feedback on the breaking plates.Consider what's expected of the government: grow the economy so dividends will forever spew out to shareholders; ensure more of the gains from new as well as existing economic wealth is redistributed to the "new" elite; pay increasing numbers of workers a living wage, which means restraining the forces of globalisation; clean up the environment; and provide a social net for the most vulnerable of our society.How can a new government that is essentially learning on the job not disappoint us all - the old elite who have an instinctive sense of entitlement to wealth and power, the new elite who vigorously assume they are now entitled to a hefty chunk of that wealth and power, and the ordinary voters who also believe they're entitled to something in exchange for their vote?The impossibility of the task becomes more evident as the government becomes steadily weakened by its attempts to meet the demands of competing claims, particularly of its impatient cronies determined to capture the state's power.But here's why we will - perhaps too late for many - succeed. We have a robust and indefatigable civil society that is determined to ensure the government protects democratic development from the elites. It is unique to this country. The many people who comprise this society are driven not by a sense of entitlement but a sense of what is right. They are dogged and will prevail.I was reminded of just how dogged our civil society is by an e-mail - one of many - from a lawyer at the Grahamstown Legal Resources Centre. It contained a story about three companies - Inportel, Anupay and Moneyline - providing loans to social grant recipients.The circumstances scream reckless and illegal lending. Social grant recipients surviving on monthly grants of R1350 are servicing multiple loans with 60% interest charges and attendant "fees".They are trapped in a cycle of debt, easy prey for microlenders in search of profits. Without civil society, without the likes of the LRC, Black Sash and Stellenbosch University's Legal Aid Clinic, they won't be heard over the shrill demands of the elite.The LRC and others don't want the grantees to escape their repayment obligations. They want our democratically elected government to do the hard stuff - ensure the vulnerable aren't just prey for the elite. That is what democratic development is about and why it is so difficult...

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