- From Jan Lamprecht
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- Note - The original title of this piece was "Mbeki
slams 'neo-liberals'". But if you read carefully his references to
the "Socialist International" and his message below, then you
will see he is really calling for an ANTI-Capitalist approach. He is saying
the "market" (capitalism) can't deliver to the poor... He really
is arguing for socialism in his normal 'beating-about-the-bush' manner.
-Jan
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- CAPE TOWN -- If social
transformation is to succeed in South Africa, it cannot allow itself to
be a prisoner to "neo-liberal market ideology", President Thabo
Mbeki said on Friday.
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- In his weekly newsletter, published on the African National
Congress' website, the president said calls within the country and on the
continent to oppose this ideology were "practical and rational".
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- A defining feature of South Africa was it had two economies,
one belonging to the developed world, and the other to the underdeveloped.
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- "This second economy includes millions of people
who are poor. These are ordinary working people whose problems cannot be
solved by reliance on 'the market'," he said.
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- These were people who did not have the skills required
by a modern economy and society.
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- "They do not generate large enough savings to make
a significant impact on the rate of investment."
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- The critically important task to end the poverty and
underdevelopment - in which millions of Africans were trapped, inside and
outside the country - could not be accomplished by the market.
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- "If we were to follow the prescriptions of neo-liberal
market ideology, we would abandon the masses of our people to permanent
poverty and underdevelopment.
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- "This would be a betrayal of everything for which
the masses of our people have engaged in struggle for nine decades, under
the leadership of the ANC."
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- Referring to the recent 22nd congress of the Socialist
International, held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, he said its call for progressive
forces to oppose neo-liberal market ideology was, "for us in South
Africa and Africa, not a matter merely of ideology".
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- "It is a practical and rational response to what
we have to do to achieve the goals of the national democratic revolution,
the objectives being pursued by the African Union directly and through
the New Partnership for Africa's Development.
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- "We have a responsibility to engage all progressive
forces in our country, in Africa and the rest of the world, to come together
in the global coalition for which the SI called."
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- This coalition had to confront what the SI called "the
unacceptable cost of globalisation".
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- "We cannot but be part of the global coalition that
must work to create the global society in which the people will govern
the process of globalisation," Mbeki said.
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- http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Politics/0,,2-7-12_1438768,00.html
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