Johannesburg – Our democracy is not secure for as long as 44.4% of South Africans are unemployed. That translates into 11.9-million people who are capable of working but who, in fact, are sitting idly at home or on the streets.
What does this mean for our democracy?
About 74.8% of youth are neither employed nor in education and training facilities.
The most tragic first implication is that these are millions of citizens whose human potential is wasted. Apart from the human tragedy of living poorly, it is also a grossly ineffective and inefficient way of managing and (not) leveraging the human resources of your country.
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Imagine the contribution to society, and directly to the economy, that could be made by young people?
We talk about the youth bulge in our region, but that kind of sloganeering does not translate into a genuine competitive advantage over other parts of the world if we condemn young people to invisibility and economic inaction.
About 44.4% of citizens being unemployed also means that we have over 10-million people who do not have a clear stake in our democracy.
Life, simply put, is expensive. You cannot live well and meaningfully if you are jobless. Frustration builds up when you are underemployed or unemployed.
You can feel like a loser if you cannot contribute towards food in the household. What does it mean for democracy?
This sense of hopelessness can potentially result in a loss of faith in our democratic institutions and in the state. This is also how cynicism about politics sets in.
Arguably worse than these consequences is the possibility of taking anti-social risks to live better because you have nothing to lose by taking risks.
I am not suggesting, to be absolutely clear, that unemployed people are more prone to criminality. After all, the lion’s share of the grand scale corruption that led to the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture have been from people who are not poor, disempowered, marginalised or unemployed.
But if we look at the recent protests in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last month, some of the protesters were people living under conditions of poverty, and when you do not know where your next meal comes from, why would you not take a chance on grabbing food to feed your family?
The unemployment crisis is therefore a direct threat to the very foundations of our democracy. What doesn’t help the situation is the state of the state. Large parts of the state have been hollowed out as a result ANC-sponsored corruption.
The consequence is that, despite policy intentions, SOEs have not been engines of growth. And, without economic growth levels of around 5% or more, we will never deal the unemployment stats a fatal blow.
The state is not fit for the purpose of helping us get the economy back on a growth path that is conducive to creating jobs.
Not enough is being done either to stimulate investment from private sector players, including foreign direct investment, by demonstrating to investors that the regulatory environments in key sectors of the economy, plus the general state of our politics, is such that it is a no-brainer to invest your money into our economy.
Shrewd investors know that political risk is as important to care for as the number crunching. Your maths model may imply “investment opportunity” but if there is poor political leadership, corruption and no predictable price evolution and stability in energy supply and other inputs, then you take a flight.
We need to fix the state and our leadership crisis to have a chance of getting the economics right.
To read more political news and views from this week’s newspaper, click here.
• McKaiser is a political analyst, broadcaster and author.
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