Cllr Jenni Black DA PR Cllr, ward 8 Ethekwini

[Trevor Watkins]

Politicians love promises of fairness through policies like affirmative action and minimum wage, but they cause tremendous economic devastation, poverty, and unemployment.

Renowned economist Thomas Sowell said fairness is one of those words that sounds so pristine, so unimpeachable, that it’s almost a crime to question it.

However, he warned that it is a political battering ram for expanding government power, dismantling economic reality, and eroding the foundations that generate prosperity.

“The people peddling this fairness gospel aren’t motivated by justice or a sincere urge to elevate the downtrodden,” he said.

Instead, they are after control, the ability to penalise achievement, and the authority to dictate winners and losers in a system they dominate.

One of the most significant problems is equal outcome, which is seen in South Africa’s latest Employment Equity Act.

In contrast to the noble quest for equal opportunity, equal outcomes are a utopian mirage that defies human nature, economic laws, and common sense.

“The goal is to level the playing field by granting preferential treatment to minorities in college admissions or hiring. It’s packaged as a remedy for past wrongs,” he said.

He said equal outcomes always lead to the predictable result of inefficiency, stagnation, resentment, and poverty.

This is seen in South Africa, where cadre deployment and affirmative action have crushed state-owned enterprises, municipalities, and state institutions.

However, instead of abandoning this destructive policy, the South African government is doubling down on it.

South Africa’s new employment equity regulations force employers with 50 or more employees to meet specific targets to ensure equitable representation.

Introducing mandatory numerical targets brings tectonic shifts in South Africa’s labour landscape.

The DA is suing the Minister of Employment and Labour, arguing that transformation comes through inclusive economic growth, not divisive race-based quotas.

“A law that forces employers to fire or refuse to hire people based on race is not redress. It is unconstitutional discrimination,” the DA said.

Sowell also slated minimum wage laws, which are widely promoted as a way to create a fair society where everyone gets a living wage.

However, the effect of implementing minimum wage laws is that the poorest in society suffer and must depend on handouts to survive.

When the government increases the cost of labour, businesses with thin margins, especially small businesses, must act to survive.

They are forced to hire fewer people, slash the hours that their employees work, or replace workers with machines.

“The people who suffer are the least skilled and experienced, the very folks who need those starter jobs to gain traction in the workforce,” Sowell said.

He gave the example of black teenage unemployment in the United States in the 1940s, at 9%, which was lower than white teenage unemployment at 10%.

Today, after decades of minimum wage escalations, black teenage unemployment routinely clocks in at 24% or higher, dwarfing the national average.

“When you price low-skilled labour out of reach, employers don’t gamble on the untested. They hire someone who can hit the ground running,” he said.

He said the data backs it up. When the federal minimum wage spiked 40% from $5.15 to $7.25 between 2007 and 2009, unemployment for 16- to 19-year-olds surged from 16% to 25%.

Sowell said minimum wage laws are incredibly unfair as they strip unskilled people of the opportunity to enter the workforce and start a career.

In South Africa, the effects of minimum wage laws are particularly brutal. Youth unemployment hovers around 60%, much higher than the national average.

Most unskilled young people have little hope of entering the workforce due to the government’s constraints on hiring employees.

Another destructive policy promoted under fairness is wealth redistribution, which politicians have used for centuries.

“The narrative is seductive: the rich hoard too much, the poor scrape by with too little, so let’s seize from the top and shower the bottom to make it fair,” Sowell explained.

He warned that this rests on the fallacy that wealth is a fixed lump to be carved up, not a living process fuelled by effort, ingenuity, and risk.

“When you clobber the productive with confiscatory taxes, you don’t just siphon their cash, you strangle the incentives that drive growth for everyone,” he said.

He gave the example of high taxes in the United States in the early 1960s significantly slowed economic growth. When taxes were cut, economic growth returned.

When taxes were cut, tax revenue from the rich didn’t shrink; it swelled. “The top 1%’s share of income taxes paid doubled from 18% to 25%.

Taxes increased because the rich had reason to invest, not shelter their money. “Fairness didn’t spark that, freedom did,” Sowell said.

In Britain, high taxes and handouts under Labour governments from 1945 to 1979 saw the economy limp at 1.5% annual growth, while the U.S. averaged 3.5%.

Venezuela’s modern saga is bleaker still. Starting in the 2000s, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro capped prices on food, medicine, and basics to ensure fair access.

By 2016, 75% of Venezuelans had lost an average of 19 pounds from hunger, inflation topped 1,000%, and hospitals lacked 95% of needed drugs.

The South African government proudly describes its spending as highly redistributive, with the social wage comprising 61% of total consolidated non-interest spending.

The government employs around 2 million people and pays them very high salaries. The average government salary increased from R43,150 in 1995 to R566,241 in 2024.

The new R100 billion Transformation Fund is another example of wealth redistribution, where money is taken from successful businesses and given to ones the state picks.

Sowell said the real beneficiaries of fairness policies like wealth distribution and affirmative action are the elites orchestrating the show.

“In the Soviet Union, party bosses preached equality from their dachas while citizens queued for scraps. By 1989, the top 10% controlled 40% of wealth,” he said.

He added that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro denounced riches until his death. However, after he died, it was revealed that he had a $900 million stash.

In South Africa, a small group of elite businessmen and politicians are the biggest beneficiaries of the government’s transformation policies, like BEE.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, for example, became one of the richest men in the country on the back of black empowerment deals.

Sowell explained that the problem with policies based on fairness is that fairness is subjective, but economics is not.

“You can squabble over what’s fair all day, but supply and demand, incentives, and productivity don’t bend to feelings,” he said.

“When government tries to sculpt fair outcomes, it warps those realities: output craters, jobs disappear, wealth evaporates.”

He added that policies pitched as lifelines for the poor usually drown them. “Minimum wages kill entry-level work, welfare kills ambition, price controls kill supply,” he said.

“This fairness crusade isn’t about levelling the field. It’s about rigging the game for the powerful. The champions don’t seek equality. They seek dominance.”

“Life isn’t fair. Never has been, never will be. No bureaucracy can decree it so without smashing more than it mends.”

“The best we can do is give people the freedom and tools to forge their own path. Anything more isn’t aid—it’s ruin.”

Trevor Watkins .. cSASI
bas...@gmail.com - 083 44 11 721 - www.individualist.one

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