The Prohibition of Poverty: A Legislative Masterstroke

South Africa needs its own “War on Want.” By making poverty illegal, we create a black market for survival.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

For too long, the South African government has dithered with complex economic theories, employment stimuli, and social grants to solve the issue of poverty. These methods suffer from a fatal flaw: they rely on reality. As any seasoned bureaucrat knows, reality is messy, expensive, and notoriously difficult to regulate. The solution, therefore, is not to uplift the poor, but to simply outlaw the condition of poverty itself.

It is time to introduce the Poverty Prohibition Act.

If history has taught us anything, it is that the moment the state bans a substance or a behaviour, that problem immediately ceases to exist. We have seen the glorious success of the sugar tax. By making sugary beverages expensive, we didn’t just annoy consumers; we decimated the small-scale sugar farming industry and crippled large manufacturers. A resounding victory for health, provided one defines “health” as the absence of a thriving agricultural sector.

Similarly, consider our triumph over tobacco. First, we banned smoking in public. Then, we banned smoking in the terrifyingly gross “smoking rooms” of restaurants. The result? A hospitality industry on its knees and a flourishing illicit cigarette trade that pays zero tax. We aimed for clean lungs and achieved empty coffers. It was a masterclass in unintended consequences, proving once and for all that if you make legal business impossible, illegal business becomes inevitable.

Driving Poverty Underground

Why then stop at sugar and smoke? The logic can hold for our greatest challenge. By criminalizing poverty, we will finally achieve what the RDP and the NDP could not. We must drive poverty underground.

Critics, such as libertarians and people who understand economics, will argue that poverty is a result, not a crime that hurts other. They will mumble about “victimless crimes,” drawing parallels to the prohibition of prostitution or the sale of recreational drugs. They will say that banning a transaction between consenting adults (or in this case, a lack of transaction due to a lack of funds) is a violation of natural or individual rights.

To them, I say: Look at Australia. The Australians are currently attempting to ban social media for children under sixteen. Will this stop teenagers from using the internet? Of course it will on the surface. We all know what will happen. It will simply turn every thirteen-year-old into a digital bootlegger, navigating the dark web with the proficiency of a cartel leader. However, what is interesting is that Australia will not be going after the consumer of social media platforms but the producers of the software, likewise South Africa should not only criminalize poverty but also those responsible for the production thereof - the greedy capitalists! This is easily done through a wealth tax. By doing this the other problem of inequality can also be eliminated. Neat eh?

The NAV Loophole and Crime Prevention

The beauty of the Poverty Prohibition Act lies in its enforcement. Under this new legislation, maintaining a Net Asset Value (NAV) below a legislated threshold will be a Schedule 5 offense.

This creates a fascinating behavioural incentive. Facing a prison sentence for the crime of being broke, citizens will be highly motivated to increase their NAV by any means necessary. Yes, this may lead to a skyrocketing crime rate as the insolvent attempt to “legalize” themselves through rapid, non-consensual asset acquisition (robbery). But this is a feature, not a bug.

This brings us to the ultimate “Gotcha!” moment of modern policing.

Currently, we have to wait for a desperate person to rob a house before we can arrest them. This is inefficient. Under the new Act, we can identify potential criminals based solely on their bank balances. If a man is standing on a street corner with empty pockets, he is effectively in possession of “intent to be poor.” We arrest him immediately. We have stopped the robbery before it happened by arresting him for the crime of poverty. It is the perfect pre-crime strategy.

The War on Want

We must look to the United States for inspiration. Their prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s was a spectacular success, creating a golden age for organized crime and poisoning thousands with bathtub gin. They followed this up with the War on Drugs, a decades-long conflict that has cost trillions, militarized the police, and ensured that drugs are cheaper and more potent than ever before.

South Africa needs its own “War on Want.” By making poverty illegal, we create a black market for survival. We envision a society where people whisper in dark alleys, trading illicit loaves of bread and bootleg maize meal, hiding from the prying eyes of the Asset Forfeiture Unit.

Conclusion

It is a simple equation. We banned sugar, and the farmers suffered. We banned smoking rooms, and the restaurants suffered. We banned alcohol and cigarettes during lockdown, and the criminal syndicates and illegal cigarette producers thrived. Therefore, if we ban poverty, the poor will simply not be there.

Let us sweep the dust of destitution under the rug of legislation. Let us fill our prisons with the penniless so that the streets may finally be aesthetically pleasing for the solvent. After all, if the government says it is illegal to be poor, then by definition, South Africa will be a wealthy nation. We will be like Cuba where they say crime does not exist because the Government says that they are Socialists and in a Socialist country there is no crime - easy, Poverty too must simply be banned - legislated out of existence, like governments want to do with most problems in society.

Charl Heydenrych is a retired human resources practitioner and a libertarian.