The Institute's Research Manager, Lucy Holborn, says that radical policies and increased state involvement in the economy are not the answers to narrowing the wealth disparities between white and black people in South Africa.
Our own writing in the media
In his fortnightly column in Business Day newspaper, John Kane-Berman does not believe that 'Guptagate' will change the ANC's corrupt ways.
John Kane-Berman asks whether cabinet worry over the effects of the Gupta bank ban is the turnaround we've been waiting for.
Frans Cronjé says the legislation is dangerous, and aimed at undermining the property rights of ordinary South Africans.
John Kane-Berman says our media should start taking the ANC's declared intentions seriously.
'There is no monopoly on pain visited on a people from prejudice and hate: the Rwandans, Cambodians and Armenians, to name but a few, can attest to that'
Under draft regulations published last week, the National Treasury is proposing that government tenders up to R10m will in future be evaluated only 50% on price, while the preferential weighting for black economic empowerment (BEE) will also count 50%. This increased BEE weighting will encourage still more inflated prices from BEE “tenderpreneurs” – and yet more firmly subordinate the interests of the poor to the interests of a small elite.
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, the Institute's CEO, John Kane-Berman, says that the Licensing of Business Bill of 2013 is another step closer to bringing about a 'national democratic society' through the National Democratic Revolution. The ANC recommitted itself to this objective at the national conference in Mangaung in December last year.
In a debate the goal of critical thinkers, let’s call them ‘public intellectuals’, and politicians must differ in one singularly important aspect: concerns about style and form belong to the politicians; substance must be the terrain of the public intellectual. Leave the politicians to worry about how the debate is spun in their favour, and the intelligentsia must worry about the integrity of the content of the debate. Max Du Preez’s article titled, “Dear Helen, please call it off” subordinates substance to expedience, an act that is nearly always shameful for a public intellectual, but sometimes necessary for a politician.
In the Sunday Times on 6 September 2015, Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Obed Bapela stated that the ANC’s Sub-committee on International Affairs, has drafted a policy to outlaw dual citizenship and thus the possession of more than one passport.
John Kane-Berman argues that the Democratic Alliance's policies are moving closer to that of the tripartite alliance's.
South Africa continues its downward slide on the index of economic freedom compiled by the Fraser Institute in Canada, says the IRR in a policy paper published in its @Liberty bulletin today.
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations, John Kane-Berman, argues, "It is not often that the government puts a price tag on failed policies, but that is what the Department of Human Settlements recently did with nepotism, cadre deployment, affirmative action, "tenderpreneurship" and general corruption in subsidised housing under the reconstruction and development programme (RDP)."
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) seems intent on alienating the West and adopting a rigid pro-Russia and pro-China stance. However, the Western countries it is busy targeting have long been South Africa’s most important investors, whereas investment from China and Russia has thus far been very limited.
Frans Cronje argues that we continue to ignore the young and poor at our peril.
Sara Gon questions the wisdom of the Gauteng MEC's "paperless classroom" programme.
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, John Kane-Berman argues that stopping racial fronting in companies is likely to be futile, just as it was when it occurred during apartheid.
In his fortnightly column in Business Day, John Kane-Berman argues that racial fronting in companies is likely to continue despite the Government's efforts to stop it.
8 December 2017 - Ernest Hemingway might have been writing about Eskom’s decline when he explained how bankruptcy happens. ‘Two ways … Gradually and then suddenly’, he wrote in one of his more obscure novels (‘The Sun Also Rises’) in 1926.
Mike Berger (Trump and the crisis of the West, Politicsweb, 15 February 2017) refers to “a growing constituency in academia and the media focused mainly on a limitless smorgasbord of 'minority rights' and Western guilt for all manner of internal and global ills… such arguments [having] powerfully reinforced virulent ethnic and ideological identity politics in an increasing spiral of polarisation.”