David Wertheim Aymes: Entrepreneur’s perspective on what will help SA thrive

As an introduction, entrepreneur David Wertheim Aymes explains: “I know that what I write is not all going to music to all peoples’ ears yet, but it might just be something that will become music over time as it is played more often.” The Bosun Group, which he founded, is the leader in its sector, employing 400 people with annual revenues of over R400m. He says: “We are not a follower in any sense. We have really tried to find a sustainable way to exist, while at the same time not sacrificing any of the modern requirements of good products made efficiently. We have found many ways to make this possible in a sustainable and even healing way. It is from this research that I am able to write the attached article. The current rhetoric is not taking us too far.” Here is his contribution.

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By David Wertheim Aymes*

Setting the landscape

Human beings have not been able to create more of any mineral (depleting resources), nor change the way a vegetable seed produces a vegetable or affect the fact of reproduction of any animal. These three elements, minerals, plants and animals, are still as they were millennia ago. Their ‘ruler’ has not been lax or weak or taken bribes or turned one vegetable against another or disturbed the natural order of things in ecosystems.

It’s quite a different story when we look at what we, as humans, have managed to do to each other and how much we have managed to pressure the natural order of things despite its resilience. The modern successes and problems we face can therefore be ascribed to human beings. The social organism that comes about within nature is our doing and, in a sense, a very modern emergence.

Human successes

We are not part of the ecosystem. We don’t eat others. In fact, we do things for others. Examples are that we educate each other, we look for justice for each other and we produce things for each other. These are the three pillars of the social organism.

Human failings

We have not worked out that our policy making, and value systems have a certain independence, autonomy, from the power and harmony of nature. While nature continues on her harmonious and integrated path with enormous momentum and certainty, we, in our freedom of choice, have an impact that is reflected back to us. Examples are that natural balances are disturbed, social structures are affected, economies work better or worse and so on. The bottom line is that it is only us that make these impacts. We don’t seem to have worked this out; but we need to.

We facilitate both the successes and failures in the following pivotal ways. Firstly, we legislate laws always wanting to favour something or someone, rather than everyone. We apply them in favour of some but against others. This can only have one effect, and this is to alienate some. The outcome of these inequalities requires a response in more complex laws or opposition in the form of underground, mafia, and so on. The second way we manage our collective successes and failures is that we educate our people today based on political, religious or economic preferences. Education, however, should have as its base the development of the child and the human being incorporating a love for learning so that they can stand on their own in the world free from such early manipulation and capacity pruning. Thirdly, we manage our collective failures and successes in that we have made the world of economy today, our god. People with material wealth are the chosen ones. The reality, however, is that in pursuing anything in life for personal gain is the root of destruction in any social environment.

In the above the ways, we are truly autonomous of the greater natural order of things and, in this, impact nature a bit, but ourselves a lot.

International evidence of societal illness and health

The Russia Ukraine scenario is one such living example where nature still exists and continues but social structures are being torn apart at the seams in the most destructive of manners because of the human policies and values that are being forced on peoples in this area. The same applies to the Israeli/Palestinian situation. There are many more such cases and more developing as we speak. These are examples of societal illness.

On the healthy side, Urban and international transportation works well in many parts of the world. We have roads, cars, airplanes, internet, bicycles, trains, and boats. We also have communication, distribution and supply systems for all our needs.

Humankind is capable of all the above, but they don’t exist or function in all parts of the world.

South Africa

Within the abundant and beautiful natural environment of South Africa, all of which is guided by the committed, holistic, wise, synchronized, beautiful wisdom of God’s nature, we have human beings with their policies and value systems. They form the basis of what appears as our society within the abundance given us. These policies and value systems bring their autonomy to bear on both nature and the social organism. Their effects are easy to see if one can observe them objectively and without bias. The effects are written about daily. This piece is about the solution which as Einstein so poignantly said, clearly cannot be expected from more of the same. Why do we have to follow the east or the west? Why not just do what will yield something sustainable?

Herein lies this solution. The legal justice system, the economy, and the religious and education systems must be recognized in their specific roles within the whole of the social structure for reasons given in the introductory paragraphs. We have to start with the religious and educational foundations that form the essence of our society. All tasks taken on by all our people are done on the basis of their upbringing and education. Education means the holistic unfolding of a full human being; not one brainwashed, starved, or unskilled. If we move earnestly in this direction, we will have great people in the legal justice system and in business. They will do what is needed for others, not what is good for themselves as is the case today. For the human capacity needed in the world, it needs a certain autonomy from regulation based on religion, race, and political desire. It also needs the will and resources dedicated to its unfolding in freedom.

Assuming we have some of this going for us, we will need an economy following a similarly autonomous path, freed from political objectives and rather in pursuit of communal benefits. The better trained and more ‘in touch with themselves’ people that choose to live in the economic realm will give a real impetus to business. Having free-thinking and morally sober people will drive costs down, efficiency up, and create profits far greater than we are seeing today. From this, our spending on education and the legal justice system becomes easier. This is a self-fulfilling recipe for a healthy social organism.

The political and legal justice system, now made up of unscarred and holistically unfolded people will, and need to, hold their autonomy. They will do this by feeding real, objective statistics of regional and national importance into the public domain. They will get the tenders out there to all people in economy, fairly and without bias and favouritism. Law making will have at its root that they must apply to all people equally and be unashamedly objective. This will give certainty to all. It will foster national commitment.

This is all a far-flung possibility for South Africa today. What we currently have is an entanglement of the above three pillars that should form the base of a healthy social organism. This entanglement is at the core of our current ineffective state, our collapsing infrastructure, and our social dissatisfaction. Our unemployment and the gap between rich and poor will only be resolved with such clear thinking as has been put forward above. Continuing to entangle the three core elements required for the liberation of any society will only keep us where we are – more of the same. The rest of the world have the same challenges but in differing areas of emphasis. We are not precious in this regard. We are just one instance within the whole.

For those that need hard hitting examples related to the current circumstances in SA, here are some. They are the subject of daily news that offers only criticism and not solutions.

SOE’s – exist where Governments engage in business themselves. The motivation for this is manyfold but includes greed and animosity towards the private sector because the private sector uses money power to influence people for personal gain; greed from the private sector this time. They employ cadres who are people connected to political will and ideologies of self-righteousness. In this they are delusional and don’t understand the basic concepts of economy.

Private ownership of land – is seen as the cornerstone of modern Capitalism. It however has the following negative aspects that far outweigh the benefits. Private ownership of land leads to people making money out of rights rather than sound economy. It also prevents those with real capacity from getting access to economy because of the costs of ownership through rights rather than human capacity.

Service delivery problems including traffic lights, potholes and so on – exist because the ruling party of the day employs people that will vote for them AGAINST OTHERS. Any governing party needs to preferably keep the right skills and experience employed so that the infrastructure is functional and reliable as a base for education and economy.

Unemployment – comes about because the basis of economy is not correctly understood. The correct definition is ‘providing for the material needs of others’. This is easy to grasp. That there are two key drivers of value creation is not that easy. The first is that we need nature products, like trees, that we then do really simple things with like chop down and sell on the spot. The second is where we combine many different people in the division of labour to refine what we make out of wood. Moving from the first to the second is what is often referred to as beneficiation. This is where real value comes from. How does this all relate to employment? Well, we must allow both forms of value creation in an economy like ours. Different structures are required to enable these. At the bottom level we must encourage many really simple activities, train people and make the facilities available for them to enter the economy at the bottom too.

Education – is being driven with socialist agendas and State control. This will lead us to where they have led other failed states.

In conclusion, the dawn of the GNU offers the possibility of a huge shift in policy. While nature will reliably continue in the background, to the extent that we don’t wreck too much of it, a shift in policy because of the way the election results went and the way that they have been interpreted and taken up by the various political parties within the GNU, could really lead us to a different social structure in South Africa. One can already see that there are more skills and experience in Government. There are people wanting to work with a bit more selflessness. There is a recognition that the voters of all designations want basic services including access to healthcare, less corruption, more objective policing, and a legal justice system that works. All of this, if held unanimously as goals by the GNU, will signify a change in focus and therefore policy. It will lead to all sorts of positive things like Expats returning, visas allowing people with skills to work here, people deciding to invest and support our future rather than expatriate funds, and much more. These are real positive signs of what could come to us because we, as human beings, can be conscious and committed to the effect we want to have on each other. The above, however, will only take us so far. There will be another bridge to cross, which will be where we run up against the general constraints of the world today, unless we can look down on the reality that a healthy social organism requires the recognition of the three key elements required for its sustainable and healthy development. We then need to work out how to manage these three elements into a healthy tension that allows each to exist in a purer form but also that each is seen in its relationship to the other two elements and works for a balance between all three.