Sharing equally is a mere dream

The article by Bob Robertson refers. I have not looked at the 200-page full version, as this would require a lot of time. In addition, I believe that if 200 pages are required to explain a principle it probably won’t work.

While there are some good ideas in the article, most of it is pie-in-the-sky. Take the issue of writing off personal debt. Nice idea, but delusional. Many people would go into debt and wait for the write-off, for example all squatters.

The world has advanced due to the talent, hard work and ingenuity of a relatively small number of people. The 99.9 percent rest of the population are just followers. If everyone is made equal, what happens to the motivation of talented and hard-working individuals who want to better themselves?

The dream of everybody sharing equally is just that, a dream. The communists tried it and after creating misery and deprivation for almost a century, failed spectacularly. The failure of this idealistic doctrine rests precisely on the fact that some people are prepared to work harder than others, but want to see a return for this increased effort.

The SA Communist Party (SACP) is still hanging in there, even after the Soviet Union failed and China is becoming a capitalist society. It shows the deep-seated lack of understanding of human nature by the SACP.

While I agree that many global companies, especially the energy majors, are raping the planet with no thought of tomorrow, this is only part of the problem. The much bigger issue not confronted by anybody, is unlimited population growth.

Yes, BP, Shell and others will eventually suck the earth dry of crude oil. So what. There are ways to live with renewable energy and this technology will evolve. But we have just crossed the 7 billion people mark. What will happen when we reach 10 billion? There will be armed conflict, not for oil, as in the past. It will be over water. As this critical resource declines and is more and more polluted, it will have an impact on food production.

I believe our educational establishments are not teaching the right life skills. And one of the key issues is taking care of our own finances. We are trained to hand over our money to “professionals” and find later that they have stolen it from us. It has happened to me: I made contributions for five years to a retirement fund. When, due to circumstances, I needed to access the cash I was paid out less than the actual contributions made.

And Pravin Gordhan calling for new economic thinking is a hoot. He is heading a ministry in charge of tax collection that works to rules of the middle ages.

There is no new thinking at SA Revenue Service. Only a frantic search to invent new taxes to squeeze more money from the working class.

In conclusion, the world economy will not collapse. Maybe it will enter a period of fasting and will shrink itself to new health. There will be some winners and a lot of losers, and the winners will be those that are talented, prepared to work hard and forego immediate gratification.

Richard Gruning

Jet Park