South Africa Can Work (Paperback)

What will it take to turn South Africa around? In this insightful and provocative book, Frans Rautenbach proposes a complete overhaul of policy thinking, and provides fresh arguments that effectively address South Africa’s unemployment, race problems and lack of education. He weighs the pros and cons of rent-seeking, the free market, affirmative action, unions, decentralisation and other issues, and in doing so tackles such contentious topics as racism and white privilege, political correctness, state funding of education, and mounting evidence that trade unions substantially suppress employment growth.

In South Africa Can Work, Rautenbach argues, for example, that the only antidote to foster growth and prosperity is free enterprise, which has, significantly, not been tried here; that tripartite, corporatist negotiations to manage the economy of a country (as in the Netherlands, Sweden or Germany) have invariably failed in multi-ethnic societies like South Africa; and that countries – whether rich, middle income or poor – where the bulk of university funding comes from the private sector not only have higher-quality, but also significantly more accessible, tertiary education.

Written by a labour lawyer with a proven track record in his field, South Africa Can Work speaks effectively to a cross-section of readers of all disciplines, and brings sorely needed good news.