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CAPITALISM WORKS BETTER WHEN CAPITALISTS LEAD

By David Dlamini The Conservatives | 2025-03-10

The historic return of President Trump to the White House continues to drive epoch-making policy repositioning across the world ,continental bodies like the European union are currently in a blitz of conferences whose frequency is only matched by an undeniable degree of panic.

The ripple effect of the return of Trump is felt far and wide and has seen the United Kingdom thrust back into the heart of the European agenda, for a moment we might be fooled into thinking Brexit actually never happened.

The biggest shock- therapy inflicted by the Trump administration largely is in the area of economic policy ,even his escapades into the raging conflicts from Gaza to the Russia-Ukraine war have layers of economic interests.

Modern capitalism, which is believed to have been born in Great Britain fueled by the industrial revolution of the 19th century, has been at the heart of world-changing dramatic changes in technology, medicine and still unfolding innovations from space research to artificial intelligence.

It has been proven that the human race benefits immensely when individuals and organisations are allowed and incentivised to unleash their God- given talents in searching for solutions to the multiple challenges besieging the world and the strength of capitalism has been its ability to facilitate this unrestrained pursuit.

The post-communism period has seen even so-called hard-core communist countries like China making room for capitalism in their economies. China`s economy has benefitted through a variegated range of capitalistic approaches often going by a range of names such as state capitalism, socialist market economy, entrepreneurial state etc., the fundamental point being that communism has been abandoned in toto and all that remains is a rhetoric that is solely meant to sustain authoritarianism.

Trump`s return to the helm of American politics,we argue, has already given positive signs that capitalism actually works better when capitalist lead; Trump`s escapades into the terrain traditionally monopolised by career politicians makes a resurgent case that entrepreneurs need a more pragmatic approach if they wish to create a conducive world for their investments, years of sponsoring political parties/individuals have had mixed results and have clearly demonstrated that delegating the responsibility to lead to others is an option fraught with too many uncertainties.

Marx and Engels
got it all wrong
Clearly the authors of communism were wrong, they should be turning in their graves seeing the biggest communist country ,at least in terms of rhetoric, China borrowing from the success book of capitalism. But Marx and Engels were right about one thing though, they did predict the unavoidable success of capitalism and that it was bound to achieve world dominancy,they stated;

“The bourgeoise, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.

The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate, it compels all nations, on fear of extinction, to adopt the bourgeoise mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, ie to become bourgeoise themselves. In one word ,it creates a world after its own image.’’

But where Marx and Engels`s error has had real history-long damage is in their warped labour theory ,their assertion that labour was the only or most significant input in the creation of economic value, their assertion ignores the immense contribution of entrepreneurship, savings, innovation, research and design and technology; it is this cardinal error that has led to even our brothers and sisters in the trade unions movement to wrongly sing and assert,’’ Yebasebenti lomnotfo wetfu’’ meaning ‘workers this economy is all made by you’,of course it is often sung in Zulu even here attesting to the strong influence of South African leftist ideologues over this sector.

The trite argument against capitalism as an exploitative system by workers is actually premised on this cardinal error, legacy of the cardinal error of Marx and Engels has been the believe that subsequent to their assertion, what accounts for differences in income between the haves and the have nots /the rich and the poor is actually unfairness in the distribution of wealth.

Capitalism simply allocates value commiserate with the contribution /input, an innovator naturally should receive a fair return for his/her innovation, just as the driver of the truck or logistics that deliver the innovation must also receive his/her reward, but these rewards can certainly not be equal in value.

What accounts for the difference in income for the affluent and the poor therefore ,contrary to Marx and Engels, is the investment each contributor has made in ensuring that his/her input carries more economic value; the argument must end right here.

The unprecedented commitment to invest in the US
The first weeks of president Trump`s tenure has already seen commitments to make astronomical investments in the US economy coming from a number of companies, from the Taiwanese chip manufacturing firm to Apple`s more than a trillion dollars commitment.

These commitments cannot be just solely attributed to the shock-therapy tariffs trade war, investors are clearly enticed by having an administration that has deeper appreciation of business, progressive administrations before Trump have tended to treat business with suspicion and disdain.

The progressive narrative has projected business as an immoral, greedy, tax evasion enterprise that should be under strict surveillance and heavy taxation. Businesses everywhere have been burdened with the extra duty to dispel this myth created by progressive politicians, the Trump administration thus presents a breath of necessary fresh air.

The administration’s goal to make America attractive to wide and newer investors is a strategic intervention in the current economic slowdown. In fact, it was really intriguing to hear a critic of Trump in one of the progressive news channels wondering where the president was going to get the workers to work in these firms.

A business-friendly White House, as already indicated by these investment commitments, creates a conducive environment for a vibrant economy.

The President ,as a business person himself, together with his team of entrepreneur advisors understand too well the challenges faced by businesses, and have demonstrated that business confidence actually leads to more investments.

Previous administrations that were progressive in orientation ,could not earn the same business confidence, and therefore could not secure the same investment commitments; so, even though the US is a capitalist country, its ability to attract more investments was stifled by the ideological disharmony with a progressive administration, making the point that indeed capitalism works better when capitalist lead.

The South African context
The Zuma years, often characterised as the wasted, perhaps unfairly, is also remembered for the confusion that reigned when he appointed two ministers of finance within a week. Zuma sacked the then minister of finance, Nhlanhla Nene, replacing him with one David van Rooyen, the markets response was immediate and detrimental with the rand plummeting in value.
Zuma was forced to appoint another minister of finance within days, the president had to learn that business was a major stakeholder in the country and it’s confidence should not be tampered with.

There’s little doubt that Ramaphosa’s presidency has been less controversial, in fact business has had a fairly good relationship with his administration.

But Ramaphosa has had really difficult moments himself dealing with the radical progressives within his organisation ,but he has been hugely successful to silence the radical voices that would otherwise have caused panic/uncertainty in the economy; this has left fringe views like nationalising the Reserve Bank to radical parties like the EFF.

The point is that Ramaphosa has had a real positive impact in the South African economy and that is chiefly due to the fact that he is an entrepreneur himself.

The argument of whether South Africa is a capitalist country or not has long been settled by their own thinkers, they have convincingly argued that the country is actually run in the free market policies of capitalist states , with radical leftist merely indulging in couch Marxist economic theory with no influence in the national policy.

We hope the next four year in the US will eminently demonstrate that capitalism works much better when capitalist lead and that investors across the spectrum of industries will maximise on the moment.

But we are under no illusion ,long-term investments will require far longer assurances than the four years of Trump offers; this means that the issue of succession becomes pivotal, perhaps a more stronger role of the Vice President would give some degree of hope that even when Trump exits there could still be some Republican candidates that can sustain the pro-business government position.

It is also hoped that the current turbulence arising from the shock-therapy tariffs debate will at some point give way to fair trade arrangements ,certainly trade arrangements must be subjected to scrutiny from time to time to ascertain if they still serve their purpose; trade arrangements are part of the capitalism architecture.

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