time lapse photography of several burning US dollar banknotes — Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

Dear corrupt politicians of South Africa,

We need to discuss your long-term financial planning.

For decades, you have treated the South African economy as an inheritance. You have divided departments, municipalities, state-owned enterprises and public contracts among yourselves with considerable enthusiasm. Yet little thought appears to have been given to sustainability.

Put simply: you are running out of money to steal.

The numbers confirm it. South Africa’s economy grew by only 1.1% in 2025, after just 0.5% in 2024, while real income per person remains around its 2007 level. Official unemployment reached 32.7% in early 2026, government debt stands at almost 79% of GDP, and more than one rand in every five collected by the state is spent servicing debt. Manufacturing contracted in 2025, while construction recorded its ninth consecutive annual decline.

The cupboard is not empty, but you are eating faster than South Africa can restock it.

This is not because the country lacks talent or resources. It is because your hostility to capitalism is destroying the system that creates wealth. You have confused control over the economy with possession of an economy worth controlling.

Socialism and notions of Radical Economic Transformation (RET) are understandably attractive to the corrupt politician. They place industries under political control, multiply the permits officials may grant or withhold, and make economic life dependent on the governing class.

Unfortunately, it has one serious disadvantage for the professional looter: it does not create very much wealth.

There may be contracts to allocate, boards to populate and budgets to redirect, but eventually the money runs out. The state may control every factory, mine, railway and power station. It cannot guarantee that any of them will continue to function.

Corruption requires production

You cannot steal the same rand twice. Once money has passed through suspicious contractors and been spent on luxury vehicles, foreign property or political loyalty, somebody must produce another rand.

That is where capitalism enters the picture.

Entrepreneurs establish businesses, investors build factories, workers earn salaries and consumers buy goods. Each transaction creates income, assets and tax revenue.

A growing economy provides more taxpayers, larger budgets and more procurement opportunities. Socialism offers control over a shrinking cake. Capitalism provides a larger cake every year.

Imagine stealing one per cent from an economy growing by 5% annually. You could enrich yourself, your relatives and several generations of obscure party officials while the country continued becoming wealthier. Instead, you appear determined to extract ten per cent from an economy that barely grows.

The tragedy of the corrupt commons

Each political faction has an incentive to loot as much as possible while it controls an institution. Nobody trusts the next faction to leave anything behind.

A municipality becomes common grazing land for patronage. More officials are appointed and more revenue redirected. Eventually, services collapse, ratepayers stop paying and businesses leave. The municipality then has less money to steal.

The same pattern appears throughout the state. Infrastructure is consumed rather than maintained. Expertise is replaced with loyalty. Productive assets become disposable sources of cash.

This is not how a serious criminal enterprise should be run.

Think of the tax base

Before imposing another ownership requirement, appointing another unqualified comrade or celebrating the departure of another investor, think of the tax base.

The tax base is not an abstract pool of money created by Parliament. It consists of people and businesses producing things others are willing to buy. When businesses close, investors leave, skilled workers emigrate or electricity failures halt production, it shrinks.

A taxpayer in Johannesburg is more useful to the fiscus than a former taxpayer in Perth. A factory in Durban offers more opportunities for redistribution than one built in Vietnam. Driving productive people away may provide a temporary ideological thrill. It is terrible financial planning.

Property rights, reliable electricity, functional infrastructure and fewer regulatory barriers would make it easier to create businesses, employ workers and generate revenue. Every new enterprise becomes a source of tax and, for those with entrepreneurial relatives, potential procurement opportunities.

There is no tender without a taxpayer

The honest argument against corruption is obvious. Public money belongs to the public. Political office is a duty, not an investment opportunity. Corruption destroys trust and diverts resources from essential services.

You already know this. Moral appeals have not worked; perhaps self-interest will.

There is no tender without a taxpayer, no procurement budget without a productive economy, and no patronage network without revenue to distribute. A dead economy is remarkably difficult to tax.

South Africa’s greatest loss is not only the money stolen. It is the wealth never created: the factory never built, the worker never hired and the entrepreneur who left before employing hundreds.

Looting takes wealth that already exists; bad policy destroys wealth that might have existed.

So, protect property rights. Fix electricity. Open railways and ports to private participation. Reduce racial ownership requirements. Privatise state enterprises before there is nothing left to sell.

Permit the economy to grow faster than you can loot it. The best solution would be to stop stealing. But perhaps that asks too much.

You do not have to love capitalism or respect the people whose taxes fund your careers; you merely need to understand incentives.

Socialism may give you control over the economy, but capitalism gives you an economy worth controlling.

Even parasites require a living host.

Nicholas Woode-Smith is a political analyst and author. He is the managing editor of the Rational Standard and a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity.

Dear Corrupt Politicians: You Are Running Out…