Sitting on an economic time bomb
- Wits University
Vishnu Padayachee is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Economics and Business Sciences.
Time is ticking for South Africa to find clear, non-racial, all-inclusive development strategies and complementary macroeconomic programmes, says Distinguished Professor Vishnu Padayachee.
“We are already seeing the growth of political movements with dangerous tendencies. They are a natural attractant for people with no hope. We need to change this,” says Padayachee, who has joined Wits as a Distinguished Professor in the Wits School of Economics and Business Sciences in November 2014.
“We need clear development strategies and complementary macroeconomic programmes that inspire all people to be recommitted to a non-racial, non-sexist, egalitarian and democratic South Africa. Otherwise we are sitting on an economic time bomb.”
Padayachee has been studying macroeconomics for the past 20 years. He and his students are currently studying the monetary and economic policy in South Africa, from the early 20th century to now.
“We look at why, in 1994 the ANC government chose a particular macroeconomic framework, and what role big business, the unions and the international community played in this choice,” he explains.
As a researcher and advisor in ANC economic policy at the time, Padayachee had an insider view.
“Decisions made at the time have not been effective in the macroeconomic picture,” he explains.
“The strategy relied on private sector investment to stimulate the economy and the State pretty much withdrew from economic life at the outset, which has cost the country dearly. Many of the large, private companies left South Africa post 1994 and re-established overseas.”
Padayachee believes a social democratic alternative of a public-led approach, where the State plays a pivotal role as an investment agency alongside an active civil society, would have been preferable.
Even though he is trained in Keynesian macroeconomics, Padayachee’s research and graduate teaching falls within the confluence and traditions of political economy, economic history and development studies.
As a Distinguished Professor concerned about academics being lured to the corporate world and his aim is to inspire young economists with postgraduate degrees to pursue an academic career.
“It’s a big worry for universities in South Africa and globally that young economists with postgraduate degrees are seduced, often by large salaries, into commerce and government. We have an obligation to counter this by getting young people excited about academia as a highly fulfilling career,” he says.