Shawn Hattingh

Like maggots crawling out of a decaying carcass, authoritarian populist parties and politicians have emerged in many parts of the world over the last few years.

For white and international capital in South Africa, the last few weeks have been a period of rejoicing due to Ramaphosa being elected as African National Congress (ANC) president. Zuma’s days are now numbered too as state president.

Recently, the accounting multinational company, Grant Thompson, conducted a study amongst 2500 multinational corporations regarding mechanisation, automation and the introduction of artificial intelligence.

Wave after wave of community protests have been taking place in South Africa from Orange Farm in the Vaal, to Eldorado Park outside Johannesburg, to Khayelitsha in Cape Town.

In the midst of gorging themselves through exploitation and corruption, competing factions of the flabby ruling class in South Africa (the ruling class being capitalists, politicians and top state officials) have once again stepped into the ring to take pieces out of one another.

Yesterday, the Minister of Finance of South Africa stood up in the circus that passes itself off as a national parliament and without any sense of irony whatsoever declared that the South African state’s budget for 2017 was redistributive and progressive.

Various columnists and opposition politicians, whether from the Democratic Alliance or the Economic Freedom Fighters, have repeatedly called for President Jacob Zuma’s head. They want him out and it is often insinuated that if he were gone, things would be better in South Africa.

Countless books, with wonderful titles like ‘The Rise of the Elephant and the Dragon’, have been written about the growth of the Chinese and Indian economies.

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