As we mark 20 years since the end of apartheid and the advent of democracy, there is a deep rupturing of the post-apartheid social consensus in the face of intensifying class struggle. The signals for its end are the Marikana massacre, the great mineworkers' strike...
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Pampering of rich too costly | by Dick Forslund
Speculation is rife in anticipation of next week's budget speech. Will Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announce tax increases? Might the tax rate for personal income above R617 000 increase to 42 percent? Might it even return to 45 percent for the portion of income...
Time to stop the tax cuts
'There is no money!' This is the standard response to the demands with which the government continues to be bombarded by people whose basic needs have still not been met after nearly 20 years of post-apartheid rule. People in South Africa are angry and impatient in...
Facts belie the hype about labour costs | by Brian Ashley and Dick Forslund
Unless reliable, quantifiable data is publicly available, reports cannot be taken seriously. The employment report by Mike Schussler (“The unemployed are the real poor”, Mail & Guardian, June 8 to 14) has sparked a heated debate about labour cost development and...
Prejudice Parades as Economics | by Dick Forslund and Jeff Rudin
Whilst the debate in South Africa rages over the poorest workers allegedly being over paid, ‘The Occupy Wall Street’ movement that is now being replicated throughout the world expresses growing outrage at the ‘one percent’ of people whose wealth allows them to...
Another Myth about the Youth Wage Subsidy | by Christopher Malikane
The National Treasury, informed by its discussion document, “Confronting Youth Unemployment—policy options for South Africa” published in February 2011, has set aside R5 billion to finance the youth wage subsidy. This subsidy aims to close an alleged gap that exists...
African population, food and the future | by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
It should be obvious in this discussion that our goal is definitely not to contribute to the ‘politically correct’ rhetoric bandied about incessantly which calls for some ‘decrease’ in African population because we do not believe that Africa, in the first instance, is...
The Royal Society’s tunnel vision on population and poverty | reviewed by Ian Angus
People and the Planet. Royal Society Science Policy Centre Report. The radical ecologist Murray Bookchin once compared populationism to a phoenix, the mythical bird that periodically burns up and is reborn from its own ashes. No matter how often the “too many people”...
Reality is a low wage economy undermines South Africa’s Development | by Brian Ashley
The Business Report is not a place to trade insults, as Mike Schussler does in his xenophobic piece “Putting data in someone else’s study is untruthful” (4/6). As Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC) we are interested in stimulating a real debate on...





