Wealth sharing is a must in unequal SA

While it should not surprise us, the news that South Africa has the highest level of inequality in the world (according to ongoing research) should terrify us.

That’s because we are sitting on the proverbial social time bomb. Anyone who doubts that should cast their mind back a few weeks to the looting and unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Although instigated for political motives, the looting was fuelled by a deep rage against poverty.

The World Inequality Lab survey on wealth inequality in SA between 1993 and 2017 shows that the top one percent of South Africans own a bigger share of wealth than the bottom 99%.

That situation, says the research, has remained remarkably stable since the end of apartheid, despite economic growth and major social transformation.

That is an indictment on the ANC government’s failure to deliver its promised “better life for all”. But, it is also an indictment of the lust for profits and wealth in our frontier-like free market economy… where it is kill or be killed and devil take the hindmost.

All of us need to help close this gap. We need less extravagant salaries and possessions at the top end – and we should be prepared to share.

The alternative is ghastly.