Understanding How Power Works In Practice
One of the underrated privileges of working in the advocacy space is that you come to understand how power actually operates in practice.
One of the underrated privileges of working in the advocacy space is that you come to understand how power actually operates in practice.
Every now and then you get to attend conferences or business meetings where you rub shoulders with wealthy and powerful people who have access to policymakers, and you see a particular dynamic first hand.
And as an old saying goes, once you’ve seen certain things, you can’t unsee them no matter how hard you try. They alter your perspective of the world in an irrevocable way.
Understanding how power works in practice
Almost immediately, all the ideals you’ve held about democracy and ‘people’s power’ for years of your life collapse under the weight of the realisation that power in democracies across the world is concentrated in the hands of a few elite groups. This isn’t to say that the people have no power at all, but that influence over public policymaking, specifically, is disproportionately held by a few elite groups that span various sectors of society. Some examples of these elite groups include corporate elites, academics, and labour elites.
These actors have access to policymakers and real influence over policymaking because they carry real power, expertise, and credibility in society. Business leaders, for instance, create millions of jobs and pay huge amounts in taxes, which is why their voices matter and cannot be ignored. Academics, on the other hand, possess technical expertise that is valuable in the policymaking process. Labour elites, meanwhile, represent large constituencies of organised labour.
Excesses, limits, and political reality
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with all of this, and it is important to remind those who harbour contempt for elites that this is how things work and that there are valid reasons why they wield disproportionate influence over policymaking. However, the influence of elites is not without its excesses, and these are worth highlighting. One of them is cronyism, where politically connected corporate interests use their influence to secure preferential treatment that would not exist in a genuinely free and competitive market. Another is corporatism, where labour elites in particular are deeply embedded in the policymaking process and their perspectives heavily shape economic policy.
In the South African context, these excesses are real and do pose a genuine threat to the fight for individual liberty. But this does not mean that the situation is all doom and gloom for those who champion policies that go against the grain.
Even as their voices are comparatively marginalised, liberals also find themselves in the corridors of elite influence, where they can – and should – attempt to influence policy outcomes in their favour. There are several ways in which this can be done and is happening, and this piece, which claims no expertise, has no intention of expanding on them.
Having said that, it is easy to see how liberals – and broadly those who support policies that go against the grain – can develop resentment toward certain corporate elites who are complicit in the country’s ongoing economic challenges. Such resentment is understandable yet ultimately counterproductive because it misses the fact that these corporate elites are rational actors who are safeguarding their interests in the best way they know how. The point is not that these corporate elites do not appreciate the importance of change, but that they are still cautious about experimenting with something radically new and remain more comfortable with what they are used to.
As to how long this will be the case remains unknown, but it does underscore what some have correctly noted: the old order is clearly dying, but the new is struggling to be born.
Emerging centres of countervailing power
And yet, outside the corridors of elite influence, there are emerging centres of people’s power within civil society that are modelling not only a vision of what a new order could look like, but also how it might be achieved. These range from civil organisations that have built real power outside the state to pressure groups that have even raised the possibility of secession in the hope of forcing the central government to make meaningful concessions on policy and governance.
None of them are perfect, and they each have their own fair share of issues that fall outside the scope of this piece, but they remain important and are proving to be effective in the search for a new order that could represent a decisive break with the old.
Conclusion: uncertainty and transition
Ultimately, change is possible, and pessimism should not be allowed to dominate. But it remains to be seen whether the turning point will emerge within the corridors of elite influence, whether it will come from emerging centres of power in civil society, or whether it will be a convergence of both forces that brings something new.
This remains unknown, and only time will tell.
Ayanda Sakhile Zulu holds a BSocSci in Political Studies from the University of Pretoria and is a Policy Officer at the Free Market Foundation.
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Well said, as usual, Ayanda. I want to add to your following statement: "Some examples of these elite groups include corporate elites, academics, and labour elites." We must not forget the POLITICAL ELITE groups. Those are the ones within, for instance, the ANC, who positioned themselves in such a way that they are more powerful than others. And I don't refer to the normal party hierachy, I refer to the ones at local, provincial and national levels where they have formed alliances with powerful civic, business, labour or criminal groups - even with state institutions such as the police service and others. Those "rogue" politicians who find it easier every passing day to gain oversized power and influence on account of the vacuums created by the ANC's implosion as an erstwhile disciplined political force...