PALI LEHOHLA | Study your enemy: the Smuts-Bijl nexus can teach South Africa how to do things differently
Rail, alongside race, maize, gold and war, was one of the critical components to fast-tracking development in the 1800s onwards
The South African development story before 1994 was driven by five vertices. An important one on our current hapless search for what form state-owned enterprises (SOEs) should take need not be China or OECD. Instead, it should be in how Jan Smuts and his scientist Hendrik van Bijl ran the state as a socially conscious entity using economics to achieve the needed impact. These five vertices were race, rail, maize, gold and war. These systematically enhanced the spectacular development achievements South Africa made, however, to the detriment of 90% of the population that was discriminated against. I discuss rail, the fourth and fifth vertices, because they became relevant catalysts that we should study, especially in the Smuts-Bijl nexus. ..
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