Contrary to popular belief after national sporting victories, we are not one big, happy family. The more we pretend we are, the less likely we are to solve our problems.
This year’s state of the nation address had a theme — social compacts, agreements between key interests in the economy and society. Repeatedly, president Cyril Ramaphosa insisted that “collaboration and consensus” between central actors would solve problems ranging from the state of the economy to gender-based violence and corruption.
He said that interest groups and the government had been busy for a while finding ways to mend society. The government, he said, knew it could not solve problems on its own and so was working with private partners to fix them. Whether this is a step forward depends on what Ramaphosa and his colleagues say it is meant to achieve.
Governments do need to work with citizens if they want to move society forward. But this does not happen in the same way everywhere. Where there is broad agreement on what needs to be done (or governments can ignore those who disagree), no hard bargaining is needed to get people to co-operate. But where there are deep divisions (and those who disagree cannot be ignored), negotiation and compromise are essential. A social compact would then reflect the bargains they strike.
This country is in the second group. It is deeply divided, and those who say the government should “stop talking and do what is needed” ignore the fact that there is no agreement on what is needed. This does not mean working together is impossible — Ramaphosa pointed out that past bargains between key interests have moved the country forward. But it does mean it will need tough negotiation before the compromises are agreed upon that will change the country.
Does Ramaphosa’s government recognise this? Up to a point, it might. He said employers and unions are discussing ways to grow important industries. This has the potential to produce bargaining in which the key interests make the compromises others want in exchange for concessions they want.
But that happens only if the discussions recognise that the parties have very different interests and so must give up something if they want something in return. Many previous government attempts to achieve social compacts have assumed the opposite — that everyone is on the same page because we all want what is best for the country. So the parties signed nice-sounding declarations at well-publicised summits. Because they don’t agree on what is best, they then ignored them.
The speech suggested that the government has not yet learnt this lesson — that the goal is yet more fine-sounding sentiments that will not be worth the paper on which they are written because the divisions among those who sign them have been swept under the carpet.
The speech described just about any issue on which the government works with citizens as a social compact — including gender-based violence and corruption. It is hard to see how people signing agreements are going to tackle either problem, so this particular compact talk does look uncomfortably like an attempt to be seen doing something rather than a solution.
More importantly, it suggests that social compacts are simply about people working together, not about hard bargaining. Men who brutalise women and people who steal public money are not negotiation partners. So all a compact means here is that groups agree to combat the problem. This suggests that for the government a compact means not negotiated compromises but people agreeing to work together.
People working together may sound good. But unless a process begins in which all the key interests who are responsible for the problems make sacrifices to solve them, the country will remain where it is now.
• Friedman is research professor with the humanities faculty of the University of Johannesburg.
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