Mercury: Who really benefits from big corporate deals?

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4988934

Who really benefits from big corporate deals?
Elites always try to tell society that their interests are everyone’s interests, but self-interested corporate propaganda is not neutral analysis

May 20, 2009 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

MUCH has been said in the past few days about the last-minute bid to prevent Vodacom from listing on the JSE this past Sunday.

On Monday South Africans were greeted with the news that the courts had rejected the attempts at preventing the listing, and the Vodacom listing on the JSE would now go ahead. South Africans – well, mainly the wealthy ones – breathed a sigh of relief.

Cosatu and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa had lodged an urgent interdict to stop the listing of Vodacom, following Telkom’s sale of 15 percent of Vodacom to the UK’s Vodaphone for R22.5 billion, thus increasing Vodaphone’s stake in Vodacom to 65 percent.

Now Cosatu is threatening to mobilise its members to join rival networks as an indication of the trade union’s unhappiness with Vodacom.

So, why the fiasco, and in whose interest is the foreign investment by Vodaphone, one may ask?

Well, over the weekend a leading Sunday newspaper led with a story arguing that “South Africa’s reputation as a business-friendly economy is in jeopardy”, and “the message is that SA does not offer a predictable, stable business environment”.

Losses

For far too long in South Africa and in other parts of the world, we have been forced to view events that affect all of us, more so those who live on the margins of society, from the perspective of elites. What the media hasn’t hammered home is the fact that this deal would lead to massive job losses in a country that is already facing an “unemployment bloodbath”.

The argument doing the rounds is that the government had assured the international business world that it would be business as usual under the new regime. What people have not been focusing on is the fact that those at the base of social strata have voted the new regime into power, believing that there would be hope for the poor as the leader of the ruling party somehow embodies the hopes and aspirations of the poor.

Also, the new government has developed at least five focal priority areas, with a prominent one being job creation.

Elites always try to tell society that their interests are everyone’s interests. But this is quite clearly not the case.

Take the case of the AmaZulu World theme park planned for eMacambini here in KwaZulu-Natal. This abomination will, if it goes ahead, result in the eviction of 10 000 families. Of course, those elites who stand to benefit from this “foreign direct investment” will present it as being in the national interest.

While it might be in their interest, it would obviously be a total disaster for the 10 000 families that risk eviction.

If we are going to develop into a society that can have a rational and open conversation about development and social justice, it is essential that that we stop presenting self-interested corporate propaganda as neutral analysis.

When foreign direct investment creates decent jobs and develops the productive capacity of the country, it is to be welcomed. But when it is simply about enriching local elites in exchange for the right to plunder our resources, it must be opposed by all right-thinking people.

Solution

The idea that the solution to our problems is always “investors and tourists” is an idea that, in essence, says that rich foreigners will solve our problems.

It is an idea that says that we should do whatever we can to make our country and economy attractive to rich foreigners looking for profit.

Corporations seek profit, not social justice. They account to their shareholders, not to the poor or the working class in the countries where they do business. In fact, very often their profit-seeking is also a risk to ordinary middle class people.

The idea that the pursuit of profit by elites is somehow in the interests of society as a whole was very powerful after the Cold War. But that idea collapsed in the wake of the financial crisis that saw squatter camps return to American cities for the first time since the 1930s. It is an idea that is as dead as the idea that Soviet-style state communism is in the interests of the people.

If our public conversations and our media are going to grapple with the complexities of reality, it is time to recognise self-interested corporate propaganda for what it is. It is time to recognise the self-evident fact that a people-friendly economy is not exactly the same as a business-friendly economy.