Letter+to+Business+Day+on+Popular+capitalism

Your Editorial headed “Broad-based bull” (May 10) avers that in the pursuit of popular capitalism only collateral can deliver happiness. On the same page the South African Institute of Race Relations’ Mr Cronje advocates the mobilisation of the “dead capital” embodied in low-cost housing.

There is a deep fallacy locked in to this kind of thinking. Let me illustrate it with an example.

Our local shopkeeper must stand in his shop seven days a week. This is the only way he can retain his customers. If for any reason (such as late delivery of bread or newspapers) they turn away, he loses. His wife has tragically passed away and his children won’t stand at the till - they want jobs.

Many other ways and means from taxi violence through full-scale monopoly and all the way up to international dumping are used in the vain hope of securing markets. This is because without customers all finance and collateral will disappear into thin air leaving only debt. Yet the basic premise of capitalism is that markets are free and therefore can never be firmly secured.

Entry-level capitalists, with or without collateral, are the worst equipped for retention of a constant market. They seek security but they cannot have it. The promise of small business is found to be a cruel illusion. Capitalism is never going to become popular this way.

Promoters of capitalism do not listen to what people really ask for, which is secure employment. Why cannot big capital expand the organisation of people in productive work? Why is it constantly proposing to abdicate this responsibility and leave it to those who are least able to manage it? If such questions are not well answered then people are bound to conclude that capitalism has failed.