I suspect most of South Africa’s political class looks at the Free Market Foundation with a special kind of trepidation. There are — at least! — three reasons why this is the case.
Second, South Africa’s politics are dominated by the ANC, and the ANC itself has a long history of association with communism and socialism, as we all know. Of course, whether the party acts according to these principles is a matter of debate. But, at an ideological level, the volume of left-wing thought in South Africa is dominant to the point of being overpowering.
And third, I think the notions that underpin the free market movement have internationally taken an enormous hit because of two things: the 2008 financial crisis, whose origins can be traced back to unregulated financial gizmos that smashed through the global economic wealthfare like an asteroid; and the Covid-19 crisis, which underpinned the need for an active and effective public healthcare system. For these reasons and others, the FMF has been swimming upstream for years.
So now, post-split, post-Louw, what happens to the FMF? My guess is that almost nobody in the broader political establishment knows, or, to be honest, really cares. Maybe it’s just my own predilections, but I don’t think free market ideas are anywhere near dead, least of all in South Africa.The FMF has just appointed a new CEO, David Ansara, who worked at the Institute of Race Relations and its subjunct, the Centre for Risk Analysis.
The result was the end of the Callaghan government and the advent of Thatcherism. Within a decade, huge industries were privatised, not only in the UK, but all over Europe, and they remain private today. The ideas of the IEA suddenly caught fire. Ansara is distinctly in the new camp. There is no necessity to be divisive, he says, but adds: “I don’t think we are in the business of making friends. We are in the business of defending freedom.”