THE vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Dr Max Price, must be a proud and satisfied educator. The Rhodes Must Fall students who disrupted proceedings at the Nelson Mandela Foundation lecture on Wednesday afternoon had clearly been taught well at UCT and, in the years to come when they eventually leave the campus to make their way in the world, they will do so secure in the knowledge that nothing succeeds like excess, the louder and more moronic the better.
Idiots are by definition pretty thick, especially if they have a little learning. But, as Ambrose Bierce (look him up) put it, they’re nevertheless a large and powerful tribe whose chumpish influence over our lives remains dominant and controlling. The fools who make the most noise come out on top. Always.
The lecture was a circus from the get-go. This year’s top billing, economist du jour and author of the best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty, was a no-show, stuck in Paris because of passport problems.
It was arranged that Piketty would deliver his lecture, “Income, Wealth and Persistent Inequality”, via live streaming from the French capital but, alas, that chose not to work and it was left to the moderator, former finance minister Trevor Manuel, to eagerly demonstrate once again his natural talent for the avuncular ad lib when things go pear-shaped.
And he was having a good go at it, on the wing as it were, when the RMF advanced on the Jameson Hall stage, singing and dancing. Chief beef, it seemed, was that they weren’t the centre of attention. As student activist Brian Kamanzi was quoted as saying, “If they are concerned about inequality, they should be celebrating our protesting. Instead they ignore our presence.”
Kamanzi further accused everyone there – the audience, the panelists, the university itself – of hypocrisy because workers, who were most affected by issues of inequality, were made to stand outside the hall and not participate in the discussion.
Here at the Mahogany Ridge we were not convinced there were in fact workers who’d wanted to take part, being of the opinion that they perhaps had work to do. Like cleaning up after students. And Piketty being a bit higher grade.
Besides, it didn’t seem as if Piketty himself wanted anything to do with the lecture. In the audio-less feed from Paris, he appeared disgruntled. Whether he was bored, tired or annoyed with the technical snafus was unclear. We got the impression that he’d rather be off drinking pastis.
Price, however, knew what the RMF wanted – a platform – and he gave them one, a three-minute chance to speak their piece. How delighted they were, and a sarky student thanked him for treating them like children.
Piketty has now arrived and will deliver his lecture in Johannesburg this evening. From interviews he’s granted local media, we can see why his visit has generated excitement among left-leaning economists and academics. He’s argued that South Africa can do much more to address its high levels of inequality, like creating an annual wealth tax or a tax on individual net wealth.
Such notions, of course, have greatly alarmed those who own that wealth. One harsh critic is analyst John Catsicas, who has dismissed Piketty’s brand of “Marxism lite” as a vogue-ish form of populist wealth distribution sentiment vigorously bandied about by mostly black commentators who believe that inequality is caused solely by white privilege and white wealth.
Writing in Business Day, Catsicas argued that inequality is not caused by market failure – but by governments wishing to control and regulate the choices of citizens. Education policies have backfired, creating unskilled classes who cannot compete in the economy. Governments meddle directly in the market place, impacting on entrepreneurship and destroying job creation opportunities. And they’re also largely corrupt, which – as we saw on the streets of our cities this week – is seen as something of an impediment in the getting ahead department.
According to Imraan Valodia, dean of Commerce, Law and Management at Wits University and a great admirer of Piketty’s work, there are two central messages in his book. One is that, rather than economic factors alone, there are political factors that have driven patterns of inequality. The other is that economies cannot be left to their own devices, and intervention is required if you want to combat inequality. In other words, they don’t do the good thing of their own free will.
That may be, but here’s hoping they’re a bit better with audio technology up in Johannesburg than they are down here. And that the right people hear what Piketty has to say.
This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.
