Tono — an accepted notion among Basotho men that there should be a pecking order in governance. In economic governance, such a notion is etched in policy. A colonial magistrate in what was referred to as Basutholand was frustrated by assault cases that streamed into court after work parties that followed wheat mowing in summer, sorghum thrashing in winter or festivities where tjontjobina (Sesotho sorghum beer) was imbibed, often in extravagant measure. Out of anguish, the magistrate counselled the Basotho men, saying: “It looks to me that there is a simple solution to your problem — why don’t you start by drinking tono and then take the rest of your sorghum beer.” The folly of this is that tono, like a complex economic phenomenon, does not have a simple solution. The problem, of course, was that the white magistrate did not know that tono is the remnant at the bottom of the clay pot containing sorghum brew, so it will always be drunk last. Tono’s significance is that it defines the pecking order by age. Where age may not be known, as would be the case in societies without writing, and where it is determined by succession rather than birth dates, tono renders this order complex and challenging. This numerical feature remained heavily contested and resulted in blood spilling and death for those who usurped the pecking order. All these fights had to be adjudicated by the white magistrate, who hardly related to the culture.
SA needs to understand the concept of tono or economic policy and what it takes for such a policy to deliver employment and reduce and eliminate poverty and inequality — conditions required for a socially cohesive nation which does not discriminate by race, gender or creed; one united and true to the constitution in delivering prosperity to the nation. These are weighty matters that require the wisdom of the Xing Dynasty — using that which is heavy to shoot at that which is light. But very scant attention is given to policy design or what its outcomes should be. The president delivers the state of the nation address (Sona), the finance minister the budget speech, parliament applauds and everyone goes back to sleep in unemployment, inequality and poverty, the latter having been approved in these speeches.
SA, in its increasingly toxified policy terrain, is adjudicated by the white magistrate. None has been as entertaining as the criss-crossed debates captured by Londiwe Buthelezi in Fin24, titled “We’re in trouble. Business says it's time to put social compact aside and disrupt economy”. This is the metaphor of the white magistrate’s counsel — drink tono first and enjoy your home brew in peace forever after. The tono perversion and subsequent conundrum are contained in the Mont Fleur scenarios that undergirded the 1994 settlement. The first assertion was will there be commitment to the transition? This received a tick. The second was will the transition be quick? This also got a tick. This on the back of Nelson Mandela becoming a de facto president in the aftermath of Chris Hani’s assassination. He declared the date of the election, putting a seal on the speed at which the transition would take place. The third was will the transition be populist? The answer lay with Tito Mboweni, who said they would not be an Icarus, but join the Flight of Flamingos. In Deeper News volume 7 number 1, Mboweni is quoted thus: “Political compromises are needed to arrive at the political settlement, which is a precondition for economic take-off. However, a settlement which seriously incapacitates the democratic government will lead to the lame duck.”
The question to ask today is, how do we describe the democratic state? Is it not the lame duck we tried to avoid by joining the Flight of the Flamingos? Were governments past and current ever populist, as defined in the Icarus and defined thus in the Mont Fleur scenarios: “A constitutionally unconstrained black government comes to power on a wave of popular support and noble intentions, and embarks on a huge and unsustainable public spending programme, which crashes the economy.”
SA chose the Flight of the Flamingos scenario, defined thus: “The transition is successful, with everyone in the society rising slowly and together.” Having pursued a route that promised a slow rise together, what is the evidence now? We need not look far. Asghar Adelzadeh of Applied Development Research Solutions (ADRS), in a discussion paper appropriately titled “Why is the SA Economy Stuck in Chronic Crises?”, addresses the tono metaphor. A critical observation is that in 24 years, only six saw real GDP growth above real interest rates. Therein lies the evidence of systematic financialisation of the economy from the real sector which drives real growth, real jobs and real resolution of inequality — the real tono. Among the outcomes of the Flight of Flamingos is that whites and a spattering of blacks have, without legitimate power, partaken of tono and the fight is on. The majority of blacks remain in abject poverty, a deep state of Gwara-Gwara, as defined in the Indlulamithi scenarios. The deadly fight about tono thus continues. So who are the actors in this comedic tono fight?
The protagonists, according to Fin24, are ironically fighting on the same side of economic policy. The difference is not about policy, but taking the posture of the tono fighters and metaphorical counsel of the white magistrate. They are the CEO of Business Leadership SA Busi Mavuso, Wits professor Michael Sachs, Nedbank CEO Mike Brown and Trudi Makhaya, economic adviser to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The protagonists fail to ask important questions relating to the Icarus scenario: Are SA’s previous and current policies populist? Given the country went the Flight of the Flamingos route, has it delivered slow but inclusive growth? Instead of confronting this at the dawn of democracy and subsequently, these protagonists tinker on the margins and squabble about tono. So Mavuso, to Makhaya’s irritation, says: “I don’t know what more we need to be socially compacting on. This is the seventh social compact we are entering as a country ... we haven’t even delivered a fraction of the commitments we made in the last social compact.” To which Makhaya retorts: “A social compact is needed because even when the economy grew by 5%, unemployment was a challenge in SA. Two-thirds of unemployed young people don’t feel that the past social compacts represented their view or even cared about them. Also, with the levels of inequality in SA, growth can’t be the only preoccupation for the government.”
Sachs argued it was time to put the idea of a social compact to one side because “growth is about the disruption of existing structures and creation of new structures”. Again Makhaya was irritated, responding: “To say growth is about disruption and you have to push through even in a war zone is ... not the quality of growth we want.”
So as the fight about who drank tono raged on, Brown made a partially important point about its legitimacy as a governance concept and how it gets abused through illegitimate claims to authority to drink it 24 hours a day. He said: “Structural growth requires very deliberate focus in terms of policy and leadership ... In the last 10 years the government has been focused on what is required to structurally generate economic growth and job creation. [Yet] running businesses in state capture must have been more than a 24-hour day job.” Makhaya conceded, saying while she admitted some of SA’s critical decisions should have been discussed for 12 years, lack of consensus was a problem. She believed the government had to get to a point where trade-offs were openly discussed.
Mavuso’s understanding of capital god is interesting. “The environment within which businesses operate is not conducive for capital. Capital is short and capital is like water — it will flow downstream.” But we also know capital flows upstream. We have recently seen how Texas disciplined the capital god. Glenn Hegar, the Comptroller of Texas disciplined BlackRock, BNP Paribus, UBS and other institutions for allegedly boycotting the fossil-fuel industry and more sanctions, in the form of pension withdrawals, from 350-odd or so companies are on the way. This shows state intervention in capital god downstream flow is false. And timid SA, with more than R17-trillion in pensions, takes 12 years to arrive at any form of consensus regarding openly discussing trade-offs. This shows how insular we are in understanding the power of economic policies and how they relate to the crisis.
The On the Record conference said businesses are fed up. SA’s unemployment rate has increased from less than 25% a decade ago to 33.9% in the second quarter of 2022, and that’s if you ignore discouraged job seekers. A whopping 66% of young people are not employed. Warnings about a recurrence of the July 2021 riots are growing as escalating food prices and other living expenses push more households towards and below the poverty line. And SA seems stuck in the 1% to 1.5% growth corridor, meaning there isn't much hope for the unemployed and hungry.
The answer is obvious. Evidence from Stats SA shows whites, who have the means, have successfully protected their ownership and become even richer, with but a few blacks who have been accommodated at the high table. This is the outcome of the Mont Fleur scenarios. A Flight of the Flamingos that promised slow but inclusive growth successfully slowed growth, but delivered nothing on inclusivity. The consequence of what we have been made to believe has bred, among other things, corruption by those in proximity to state power inspired by the few of their colour who were chosen very carefully by capital to be at the high table. The Future we Chose Scenarios talk directly to this phenomenon of propensity to corruption. Thuli Madonsela, chair of social justice at the University of Stellenbosch, says those who want to corrupt you study you, lay the trap and pounce. The findings of the state capture commission she called for as public protector left us in awe of her summary’s truth.
Unfortunately the debate did not answer why SA remains in this pandemic of unemployment, poverty and inequality. It skirted the question of the legitimacy tono bequeaths to authority, but offends through participants drinking that to which they are not entitled and ending in squabbles. SA must understand that economic policies matter and the heterodox approach provides a far superior diagnostic tool, road maps and options to understanding and resolving this pandemic. Government’s role is not one of adjudicator of development but direct intervener therein. A weak state is no justification for eliminating government in areas such as education, health, transport and energy supply. What is necessary is to remove weak government operatives. Brown rightly describes such a government weakened by these operatives when he says: “[Yet] running businesses in state capture must have been more than a 24-hour day job.”
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Johannesburg’s Wits university and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of SA
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