Baby+Talk+(letter+to+Business+Day)

Letters, Business Day, Johannesburg, 13 July 2005
=Baby talk=

Is Jacob Dlamini’s column, Time to think outside of those ideological boxes (July 12), the product of a particularly pleasant lunch with Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moleketi? Because although he begins well enough with Hannah Arendt’s remark that “rational, nonideological economic development is possible”, he gets lost thereafter.

Moleketi’s advocacy of empirical, eclectic, experimental economics is not only thoroughly irrational, but also highly ideological.

The suck-it-and-see approach to life is characteristic of young, prerational and prescientific human beings. In other words, it is babyish. It is also antidemocratic, for what is the point of debate when resolutions are treated as just another experiment, and no better than arbitrary chance?

Moloketi is the author of the discussion document Development and Underdevelopment and presented it in commission at the African National Congress national general council, where it was rejected. Even the labour minister publicly repudiated Moleketi’s pet “dual labour market” ideology.

Since then Moleketi has been going around briefing the financial press about the decisions he sought.

It shows that when people cease to care about reason and science, they also cease to care about democracy. They adopt the post-modern ideological madness which SA has been able to avoid up to now.

Lombardy East**
 * Dominic Tweedie


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A67890**

As sent: Is Jacob Dlamini’s article “Time to think outside of those ideological boxes” (Business Day, July 12) the product of a particularly pleasant lunch with Deputy Finance Minister Jabu Moloketi, by any chance? Because although he begins well enough with Hannah Arendt’s remark that “rational, nonideological economic development is possible” he gets totally lost thereafter. Jabu Moloketi’s advocacy of empirical, eclectic, experimental economics is of course not only thoroughly irrational, but also highly ideological. The suck-it-and-see approach to life is characteristic of young, pre-rational and pre-scientific human beings. In other words, it is babyish. It is also anti-democratic, for what is the point of debate when resolutions are treated as just another experiment, and no better than arbitrary chance. Jabu Moloketi is the acknowledged author of the discussion document called “Development and Underdevelopment” and was its official Presenter in commission at the ANC National General Council. The document was rejected. Even the Minister of Labour publicly repudiated Moloketi’s pet “dual labour market” ideology, with reasons given. Since the NGC (the highest body of the ANC’s democracy between National Conferences) Moloketi has been going around briefing the financial press against decisions he sought at the NGC, but which did not go the way he wanted. It shows that when people cease to care about reason and science they also cease to care about democracy. They lose respect for the reasoned decisions of their fellows. They adopt the “post-modern” anything-goes ideological madness which South Africa has largely been able to avoid up to now.