Economic Freedom: The Only Way Out For South Africa
Economic freedom is not a policy option. It is the foundation of prosperity and the only path to a better South Africa.
The ANC’s ideas are bankrupt. After thirty years in power, it has shown no knowledge of how to improve the lives of the people. It does not know how to create jobs. It does not know how to create an environment in which the economy can thrive. Instead, it remains wedded to Marxist doctrine, redistribution, and race-based policies like Black Economic Empowerment. These policies have produced the poverty, unemployment, and decay that surround us.
South Africa’s condition is not an accident. It is the result of ideas that simply do not work and have never worked anywhere. The abject failure of the ANC’s policies leaves an unavoidable question: if redistribution, racial engineering, and state control cannot deliver prosperity, what can?
The answer is written in the record of countries that have succeeded against the odds. Hong Kong rose from post-war ruin to prosperity in the space of a generation. Singapore, with no natural resources and deep internal divisions, became one of the wealthiest societies in the world. Mauritius, once dependent on sugar and tourism, remade itself into one of Africa’s most prosperous economies.
Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every person to control his or her own labour and property without government interference. It is the recognition that the time, energy, and skill of each human being belong first to that person, not to the state. It means being free to choose work, to trade, to save and invest, and to keep the rewards of one’s effort.
For economic freedom to exist, the right of each person to control labour and property must be guaranteed by secure property rights, impartial laws, sound money, open trade, and regulation that does not obstruct business. These are not abstract notions. They are the practical conditions that have allowed every society that respects them to prosper. Where they are absent, as in South Africa today, poverty and suffering are the inevitable result.
The evidence is irrefutable. The Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Index measures five dimensions of freedom: the size of government, the protection of property rights, the stability of money, freedom to trade internationally, and the regulation of credit, labour, and business. Its findings are beyond dispute. Countries that rank highest in economic freedom enjoy far higher incomes, longer lives, and lower poverty than those that rank lowest. Even the poorest in economically free countries are many times better off than their counterparts in unfree ones. There is no superior system to be found.
South Africa ranks only 83rd out of 165 countries in the latest edition of the Index, released on 25 September 2025 by the Free Market Foundation and the Fraser Institute. That places us in the lower half of the world, far behind not only advanced nations but also peers in our own region. The reasons are plain: weak protection of property rights, a bloated state, unsound money, restrictions on trade, and labour laws that lock millions out of work. These are the areas in which economic freedom has been deliberately curtailed, and they are the reasons our economy stagnates while others move ahead.
South Africa’s economic situation will not improve until it changes direction completely. Every attempt to revive the economy while maintaining centralised control over it has failed and will continue to fail. Growth cannot be commanded. Jobs cannot be legislated into existence. Prosperity cannot be achieved through redistribution. These things arise only when government steps back and allows people to act freely in their own self-interest through voluntary exchange within the rule of law.
The Economic Freedom of the World Index proves beyond all doubt that only economic freedom creates prosperity. Where economic freedom is strongest, people are wealthier, healthier, and live longer. Where it is weakest, poverty and suffering persist.
This will determine South Africa’s future. A government that trusts its citizens with freedom will see progress; one that clings to centralised control will see only further decline. Prosperity will return only when people are again free to use their labour and property as they choose.
Economic freedom is not a policy option. It is the foundation of prosperity and the only path to a better South Africa.
Eustace Davie is President of the Free Market Foundation and author of Jobs for the Jobless and Unchain the Child.
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Obviously I agree Mr Davie. Well said.
I will only add:
1. The ANC does not care about prosperity, but economic freedom is the only route to what they actually care about: staying in power. In addition, it even generates more taxes for them to spend/steal without doing that unpopular thing of raising tax rates.
2. Economic freedom is necessary for sovereignty, we need it to equip SANDF properly, I have been doing research on SANDF and I think we need an 8-frigate navy for example. There is no way to get there without increasing economic growth greatly and no way to do that without increasing economic freedom
3. China increased economic freedom to achieve 1 and 2 above. But the degree of the increase required depends on the country. A large market with a high rate of savings like China can get away with increasing economic freedom much less than a country like SA needs to increase it by to achieve similar results.
All these things would matter to people who only want to use economic freedom cynically. They do not care at all about the moral case for economic freedom.
I would go so far as to say if the rent seeking tool called BEE is removed because it harms economic growth, another tool must be given to the ANC to extract rents.