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3 weeks ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Jeff Rudin |Peter Bruce
Jeff Rudin works at the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) Being part of a political economy notorious for its world-beating inequality and in a country where Africans are 80% of the population, guarantees that most Africans will be poor. This is Part 2 in a two-part series. Read Part 1 here.
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2 months ago | 
amandla.org.za | Jeff Rudin |Ray Mahlaka
In early January 2025, the Competition Commission published its final report for the Inquiry into the Fresh Produce Market. The outcry was immediate. More significant than the expected outrage from the fresh produce market was that of economists. Even the Daily Maverick’s Ray Mahlaka – “In Defence of Food Retailers in the Private Sector” – was part of the baying pack. The transparent fiction of “consumer sovereignty” was at the heart of the economists’ attack.
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2 months ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Jeff Rudin |Ray Mahlaka
FOOD INSECURITY OP-ED Speaking truth to power has almost become radical chic. Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy have argued that ignorance has no part in why the powerful do what they do. Their critique needs a slight nuance to allow for what the powerful choose to deny. In early January 2025, the Competition Commission published its final report for the Inquiry into the Fresh Produce Market. The outcry was immediate.
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Nov 7, 2024 | 
amandla.org.za | Jeff Rudin |Phillip de Wet
Part 3 in a three-part series. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. The coherent logic of neoliberalism (for my version of neoliberalism, see here). TransformationThe peaceful transition of 1994 has been recognised as a quid pro quo involving the handing over of political power to the ANC while leaving the economy essentially unchanged. Books and articles have been more recently published showing that the trade-off also involved making the capitalist class slightly multiracial.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
amandla.org.za | Jeff Rudin
Part 2 in a three-part series. Read Part 1 here. The Centre for Risk Analysis is typical in drawing attention to the “lack of service delivery that has accompanied” the public sector wage bill of R721-billion. That the mere mention of poor service delivery is immediately understood by those with limited use of the public sector is — besides prejudice — almost certainly because of their experience of load shedding and, for those in Gauteng, of water outages as well.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Jeff Rudin |Phillip de Wet
SELECTIVE PERCEPTIONS OP-ED Unlike the first corporate-made black billionaires – including President Cyril Ramaphosa – those excluded from the creation of a black bourgeoisie and the corporate takeover of selected ANC leaders were left to fend for themselves, and illicitly helped themselves to any available source of wealth. Part 3 in a three-part series. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. The coherent logic of neoliberalism (for my understanding of neoliberalism, see here).
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Jeff Rudin
SELECTIVE PERCEPTIONS OP-ED For teachers and medical professionals, the private sectors beckon as havens, together with much better pay. They could also add to the brain drain, but they mostly don’t. Instead, they endure reading that the government and economists hold their greediness (partially) responsible for South Africa’s dire economy. Part 2 in a three-part series. Read Part 1 here.
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
amandla.org.za | Jeff Rudin |Maria Ressa |Ray Mahlaka |writes Branko Brkic
“Truth,” writes Branko Brkic and Maria Ressa in a recent Daily Maverick article, “is being relativised daily; what once was a common understanding of material reality is today often supplanted by fact-free interpretation. In many instances, the very form of the word Truth carries the meaning of Lie.”Reason, however, precludes the relativism of truth, which closes off critical analysis, an issue to which we will return in Part 3.
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Oct 22, 2024 | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Jeff Rudin |Maria Ressa |Ray Mahlaka |write Branko Brkic
SELECTIVE PERCEPTIONS OP-ED South Africa has the third-largest public sector wage bill as a proportion of GDP in the world, which at about 10.5% of GDP greatly exceeds that of countries like the US, UK, Australia and Japan. But this masks the fact that there are 139,811 workers on the bottom three levels earning between R123,741 and R159,879 a year in the world’s most unequal society. Part 1 in a three-part series.
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Sep 23, 2024 | 
amandla.org.za | Jeff Rudin
Part Three in a three-part series; read Part One here and Part Two here. “Every international body that deals with agriculture has come to recognise the need to prioritise food security over simply promoting trade. While the original Rome Declaration on Food Security in 1996 talked about ensuring food security through market-based mechanisms, the 2009World Summit on Food Security placed emphasis instead on national investments in agriculture.
