MAKHUDU SEFARA | SA’s social contract has been broken. That’s why things are falling apart

The relationship between society and the individual has always been complex. Even as our minds are subject to the laws of causation, as argued in Joseph Priestley’s Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated, we are, still, neither the amalgam of our deeds nor objects of control from outer space. We are a mix of intersecting pull and push forces. 

In The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau teaches us that we lose individual rights but gain a level of orderliness that keeps us away from the “state of nature” where only the fittest survive. 

Yet the tumult in the world today is a direct consequence of inconclusive answers to the question: “What is the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society — or governments — over the individual in return for this orderliness?”

Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, writes that man is an animal that makes bargains. Smith writes that we “address ourselves, not to another’s humanity, but to their self-love”. This, he argues, is because when we bargain, we say “the best way for you to get what you want is for you to give me what I want”. This exchange  – and fulfilment of different interests — is what is at the heart of relative world order. Workers sell their labour in return for wages, which they use in the marketplace in return for products created by others. Nations trade and so on. The sweet spot between our collective self-interests lead to bargains which have ensured orderliness in the world. 

But this order is now threatened. Not just in Ukraine. Not just because Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly talking about nuclear weapons as his troopers fail to nail what was supposed to be a quick “special operation” in Ukraine. 

In our everyday encounters, we realise that the individual rights we have ceded to the state or society are not leading to an expected orderliness.

But because, in our everyday encounters, we realise that the individual rights we have ceded to the state or society are not leading to an expected orderliness. For some, this is to be found in something like state capture — the troubling discovery that those who ought to have acted in your interests, mortgaged the state to a motley crew of corrupt businessmen. For others it’s the simple act of paying tax in the hope that those in government will ensure that it’s spent appropriately and do not lead to R166bn-worth of maladministration. 

This week though something else unfolded in parts of Gauteng. 

Taxi operators took it upon themselves to drag people suspected of using lift clubs out of cars, including those taking their children to school. They were forced to use taxis. Drivers, depending on which part of the city you’re caught in, are fined varied amounts.

Where does the temerity to stop cars, inspect who is inside and, when they meet the approvals of taxi operators, decide which ones are allowed to drive on, come from? Where do they get the nerve to set up “roadblocks” or checkpoints and cause traffic nightmares in an economy like ours? Where was Metro police?

Who among taxi drivers is to decide what is affordable for others? What is wrong with neighbours, friends even, using carpooling, especially at a time when the economy has the rest of us under pressure? The Federal Reserve in the US took a decision this week to increase interest rates. It is fait accompli that the SA Reserve Bank will increase interest rates when it meets later this month, as it did last month. In fact, economists expect that life is about to get harder throughout this year.

But let’s park this.

In Mpumalanga, an ANC member decided Thursday was a good day to set the party’s provincial offices alight. We may not yet have the real reasons for his actions, but how is this resort to criminality a solution to anything? It could be a bitter employee whose salary has not been paid for a while. Or a disgruntled member staring defeat in the face, since the provincial elections for the ANC leadership are around the corner. But the solution implemented by the arsonist says a lot about their confidence, or lack thereof, in the state’s ability to give them justice. Instead of putting the matter in the hands of the state, in line with the social contract, they decided to revert to the state of nature — where they, like taxi operators, mete out their own form of justice outside our regulated existence. 

Take a look too at the vigilante actions of Operation Dudula and the so-called Dudula Movement of Alexandra township. These too are South Africans believing, rightly or wrongly, that their lives are increasingly miserable because government is either incapable or not possessed of the will to keep undocumented foreigners out of the country. Solution? They venture outside of the social contract and effect evictions while damaging people’s properties. Now, on Monday, we are told, those who have organised themselves to fight this xenophobia will take to the streets on Human Rights Day — a day on which 69 people were killed in Sharpeville 62 years ago — in what could be a showdown against Operation Dudula. An eye for an eye. All of these activities are happening outside of the social contract. Each to their own. The fittest will survive. The state of nature beckons. William Butler Yeats put it thus: “The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ...”

It seems plain but it must be said. The police must do their work. Enforce the peace. But even with the best of their intentions, we are not animals to be guarded 24/7. Our social order is a consequence of bargains made and therefore those charged with the responsibility to govern must do so. If this is not done, the “nature and limits of the power” surrendered to the state in line with the social contract will be nullified and Yeats’s doomsday will manifest. Those subjected to searches and fines by taxi operators, or those murdered and raped without justice, or even those harassed by Dudula might legitimately argue that things will not fall apart but they have, indeed, fallen apart. The social contract is at risk.

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