Imagine hosting an alternative Olympic Games, where the objective of the 100m dash is for all athletes to cross the finish line at exactly the same time. An equal finish, instead of an equal start.
To achieve this, either the faster athletes would need to be handicapped (carrying weights, for instance) or the slower athletes would have to be given a start. I doubt you’ll sell many tickets. It would be as flawed to have athletes start at the same place but have some with imposed burdens that affect their ability to compete on an equal footing. This is our conundrum.
Democracy is founded on the principle of a homogeneous population, with equality as an input not an outcome. We certainly didn’t start with that. I can’t find an alternative to democracy that isn’t fundamentally flawed, with eventual outcomes more dire than our potential shortcomings, including the often-touted wish for a benevolent dictator. That course of action has yielded some immediate returns, where it has worked, in some places, but ultimately has required, by definition, the submission of the will of the people to the will of the dictator (or cause), most often forever, or at least until the demise of the instigator. Clearly, that is intolerable.
No. One person, one vote, it is, and so it should remain.
Our conundrum arises when we seek immediately equal solutions to unequal starting points. There are essentially two ways to get there: either lower the quality of the output or improve the quality of the input. This requires smarts, not wish lists. It requires common purpose, time, money, trust, action and extraordinary leadership. There are no quick fixes, and promises to deliver them are lies.
It is manifestly misguided, if not disingenuous, to drop standards until you achieve the desired fillip of universal participation. This approach never ends well and doesn’t stop until you reach the lowest common denominator.
Education is a stark example. Quoting “comparable” statistics isn’t a solution — it is just another lie to an audience presumed stupid. It is cold comfort to achieve a higher matric pass rate by either lowering the pass mark or making the exams easier. There are more distinctions floating around nowadays than there used to be subjects.
If 30% is a pass rate, then you’re considered qualified in the subject despite getting 70% of the answers wrong. Would you let someone service your car’s brakes if they didn’t know 70% of what they were supposed to do? If we did, we should expect a significant increase in accidents.
We’ll get the same result from an education system that places more value on certificates than acquired knowledge. This flaw will inevitably extend beyond basic education into tertiary institutions of learning. Systemic failure will result and, sooner or later, qualified people will not be able to get jobs. We cannot teach people to swim by lowering the water level until they do not have to.
Our problem is that we have systemic imposed inequality that fundamentally changes the game, which won’t be solved by imposing equal outcomes. We have to do the hard yards. In education, that means intensive and situation-specific teacher training and facility improvement. That will require a reallocation of current expenditure (we spend a lot) into a focused uplifting strategy, bespoke to our circumstances.
Healthcare faces similar challenges that won’t be solved by the wish-without-means proposition that is the National Health Insurance Act.
Huge strides have been made to achieve the inclusion we all demanded when we signed up for our constitution, but disappointment will surely follow if we keep administering painkillers instead of addressing the root cause of the problem.
There are broader mindset issues to deal with here. Dropping standards to include more people doesn’t end well, and the play-now, pay-later approach always costs more. If we target the inputs, the outputs will look after themselves. South Africans are sick and tired of being dependent and obedient.
• Barnes is an investment banker with more than 35 years’ experience in various capacities in the financial sector.
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