Making South Africa's Democracy Work for the Poor
Channel: SACSIS
Date: 2012-12-11

Public intellectual and political commentator, Steven Friedman, Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg talks to Fazila Farouk of the South African Civil Society Information Service (www.sacsis.org.za) about how to make South Africa's democracy work for the poor.


Friedman argues, the South African government does not have a bad record of sheer physical provision to the poor. The real problem that South Africa has faced over the last 18 years has been that we haven't got to grips with the inequalities in the market economy.

What we don't have in this society is a workable strategy for how to engage with economic elites to shift the balance of power towards poorer working people - and if you want those balances to shift, then business has to be part of the story, he contends.