There is a clear lesson — amounting to a wake-up call — for every trade unionist in the allegations and evidence emerging from the Zondo Commission into state capture. It is that the perception in the labour movement that the present economic system is inherently rotten, is true.
Also clearly underlined is the validity of the comment: power tends to corrupt. However, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that political power makes individuals who take to wielding it within the existing dispensation— among them leading trade unionists — susceptible to being corrupted.
And that does not necessarily mean having fingers in the state till or being bribed by more than an inflated parliamentary salary or position of authority. South Africa is also not unique in this.
It is a problem facing all parliamentary democracies, because they only provide an illusion of popular control, a concession won over recent centuries by the often bloody and bitter struggles of working people. But that old saying that “he who pays the piper, calls the tune” remains as true today as ever.
The major difference in the recent South African context is that the examples of state capture now being investigated have been decidedly less subtle than in most other cases: smash and grab raids as opposed to long-term fraud. Parliaments, although voted into power by working class majorities, invariably end up as.the effective management structures of the existing system of exploitation.
It’s the same in parliamentary democracies the world over and can be seen in the fact that taxes — set by parliaments — increasingly favour the super rich. As the rich have become richer and economically more powerful, corporate tax rates have reduced, with the result that more of the tax burden is borne by working people.
This is the nature of a system where the economic model is based on competition, with profit as the over-riding priority. Parliaments, although voted into power by working class majorities, end up becoming the effective management structures of the existing system of exploitation. It is only at election times that there is pandering to the majority, usually in the form of promises.
Our own history of the defeat of a brutal racially exclusive parliamentary democracy provides an object lesson: the economic system remains intact, only the regulatory — the management — sector is now staffed by representatives of the majority, elected by votes won by the majority. That’s the way it works.
And we have certainly seen the seamless transition of a number of union leaders and one-time professed radicals to compliant ministerial posts and to even more lucrative positions in business. Some have gone, openly expressing the desire to bring about change from above, until providing more evidence that, in an hierarchical — top-down — structure, the position changes the person,
When rot sets in, it is not so much a case of being sucked willingly or even blindly into a swamp of corruption; it is usually more like being led down an apparently innocuous primrose path until ensnared by dependency and greed. However it happens, the results are usually the same.
Most unions correctly note that the government continues to pursue the neo-liberal economic policies it adopted in 1996, policies castigated by the SA Communist Party (SACP) as the “1996 class project”. Yet five senior SACP leaders remain ministers in the ANC government.
Twenty-two years later it seems clear that, without democratic control over, and the right to recall, elected representatives — these being the “basics” early anti-apartheid unions strove for — the corrupting minority will continue to have a relatively free hand.
Cape Town, South Africa-based journalist commentator and author specialising in political and economic analysis and labour matters. 
Terry Bell Writes 
Drs Sears Appalsamy
February 2, 2019
The corrupt officials and looters should have their bank accounts frozen and their assets seized.. This looting and corruption began 24 years ago. But I am angry with Bossasa because theyhave NOT given all the school children in our country BAAI PACKS but only for the rich and mighty and the politically well connected. The Namibian Governemnt does not want to copy South Africas BEE policies because the rich got richer and the poor stayed in squalor and slums. The poor after 24 years of democracy stiil live in pinching poverty. We are happy that President Ramaphosa is cleaning up the 24 years mess. Congrats to him from all of us.
Jan Davel
February 3, 2019
Terry
With all due respect, the assumption that the present economic system is inherently rotten, implicating all businesses, is unfair, because many business are in fact participating in fair business and labour practices. They are actively engaged in real empowerment in a competitive market where some competition are not so committed to the same values and goals.
It is really unfortunate that in our push for an equitable society, that the good work by many are marginalized for purposes of of a socialist dispensation.
The reality that face all humanity, is the standard human condition, which is essentially selfishness, which manifest as a disregard for the needs of others.
I do not approve any of the corruption that are evident in all of the world. The reality is that most of it happen because of this standard human condition.
Thus I will argue that capitalists do not exploit labour because they are capitalists, they do it because they are human. Similarly communist regimes did not oppress and kill all dissent because they were communists, they did it because they were human.
If I can introduce a person or a collective to an imagined order that will benefit him or the collective, the selfishness will respond to the ideology and will act in the must inhuman ways to achieve that selfish goals. This unfortunately expose societies, and individuals to exploitation by leaders that promise them a new and better life with the democratization of the means of production.
If this ideology is sustainable, why don’t labour use there collective investment resources to start corporations that are structurally based on democracy, and build sustainable businesses?
It is not illegal, neither are there any other environmentally reason why they can not proceed and do it.
I suspect that they will suffer the consequences of the standard human condition, and became less productive, followed by a lack of competitiveness, followed by bankruptcy.
If in any given circumstances a collective median lifestyle are not back by an equal level of productivity ,the outcome is a “productivit- lifestyle gap” This problem is usually solved with debt, which is not sustainable.
Thank you
Jan Davel
J Canterbury
February 5, 2019
They might have a relatively “free hand” but, thanks to the Zondo Commission, it is no longer an ‘invisible hand’ guiding issues of an economic nature. The message that I got from your article is that citizens need to be constantly vigilant against anti-democratic practices, such as politico-economic corruption.
I would also like to add that citizens should actively resist the ethos of economic competition and consumerism from infiltrating their way of thinking. We should, instead, support that which builds community and re-learn the value of the social goods and ‘the commons’; I think that these values are important milestones for indicating whether or not we are indeed on a citizens’ path to true democracy.
Terry Bell
November 16, 2019
I agree. And we should all perhaps address the electoral system that constrains democracy and creates conditions that allow corruption to develop.