Erasibo

This excerpt below is from www.ekh.co.za the full post can be found here:

Imagination is absent in the conventional spaces of South Africa’s economic growth path.Conventional wisdom equates increasing economic growth to around 7%, as an important target. In political speak, the growth target is of course a “necessary” and not a “sufficient” condition. What it In fact does is reflect orthodoxy. This policy stance is premised on the fiction that we can grow ourselves out of a situation of high unemployment, poverty and inequality.

The alternative position is to focus on building economic inclusion so that, as growth ramps up, so too, do employment growth and a concomitant reduction in poverty and inequality occur.

Enter COSATU’s economic proposals contained in “A growth Path Towards Full Employment.”
The proposals straddle an old style debate on economic growth, but more imaginatively, offer a set of propositions that open the space for a new discussion on economic policy. In so doing, it accepts as foundational, the structural nature of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Economic commentators have been critical of these proposals. The major response has been that the COSATU proposals would herald economic catastrophe because they are too ideologically grounded in a socialist perspective. A softer criticism is that COSATU’s strong focus on macroeconomic policy fails to deal with the challenges of the micro economy. In this vein, Hillary Joffe of Business Day argues that greater focus is needed to understand the incentives of private investment decisions.
Seasoned commentators on the left, like columnist Terry Bell, argue that the proposals mark a continuation of a failed strategy centred on reaching an economic consensus based on corporatist deal making. The justified criticism is that current versions of a social compact would be inadequate to meet the developmental challenges we face. Thus, COSATU needs to build power. All said, the criticisms indicate that COSATU’S views are important enough to be contested.
COSATU however has its supporters. After the formal launch of its growth path proposals, civil society and private sector organisations provided an instructive account of why COSATU’S proposals will resonate in the “real economy.” More to the point, why those struggling in the economy understand the proposals in a deeper manner than the majority of economic commentators.