CURRENT AFFAIRS
Business
and government:
too many
pointing
fingers
We have been living in a
democracy for nearly two decades,
but many in business still seem
unfamiliar with what this means.
P
ointing a finger at others is a right. Pointing it at
ourselves is a duty. In a recent panel an economist
observed, accurately, that relations between government
and business were at their worst since the 1990s. Part
of the problem is that too many fingers are pointing
outwards at others and not enough are pointing inwards.
We are awash with economic recipes which assume that, if one
economic actor is allowed to tell the others what to do, our problems
will be solved. For some, business must tell government what to do;
for others, government or labour must tell business what to do.
This fails to grasp a reality – that none of the actors can impose
themselves on the others. Decades ago, a Wits academic, David
Yudelman, wrote a book on the relationship between business and
government in the early years of the last century, when they were
seemingly at each others’ throats. His conclusion was that, although
they were divided by language and political loyalties, business and
government were forced to cooperate because they needed each
other. This is still true – in any market economy, government needs
business to produce wealth and business needs government to
preserve an environment in which that is possible.
20
BANKER SA
Edition 5