An elite detached from daily struggles

Recent remarks by the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, suggesting that those critical of his neoliberal policies “have nothing to do,” bear no responsibility, do nothing except march and most crucially “do not understand the economy,” demand a principled and serious response. The Minister’s political formation took place within the organised working class. As General Secretary of NUMSA, a leading Marxist theoretician and a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party, he helped articulate one of the most rigorous critiques of neoliberal macroeconomics in the early democratic period.

He penned Cosatu’s first formal rejection of GEAR in June 1996. That rejection was neither emotional nor reckless. It was grounded in political economy.

It was based on the understanding that macroeconomic frameworks are not neutral technical instruments; they embody class interests. GEAR was opposed because it entrenched fiscal austerity in one of the most unequal societies on earth. It accelerated trade liberalisation before productive capacity was consolidated.

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It deepened financial integration without safeguarding industrial development. It imposed cost-recovery and market discipline on essential public services. It reduced the state into a referee whose role was limited to creating a conducive environment for capital accumulation.

The critique was principled: economic policy must serve social transformation, industrialisation and working-class advancement, not merely the confidence of financial markets. When workers marched and criticised the macroeconomic direction under Minister Trevor Manuel, it was never about personalities. It was about policy.

It was about defending jobs, state capacity and redistribution. To march against a framework is not to attack a person; it is to contest a direction. In his most recent Budget Speech, Godongwana claims that the economy has “turned the corner,” pointing to narrowing deficits, stabilising debt ratios and rising primary surpluses as signs of recovery.

Yet the speech says virtually nothing about the catastrophic levels of unemployment that continue to define South Africa’s social landscape. It does not centre the entrenched poverty that leaves millions dependent on grants for survival.

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