The set of scenarios have been penned by the CEO of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), Dr Frans Cronje in a book titled A Time Traveller’s Guide to South Africa in 2030.
According to IRR head of risk analysis, Kerwin Lebone, “the latest scenarios cut through all the uncertainty confronting South Africa…”
It introduces four brand new scenarios for South Africa:
- The Rise of the Right, which suggests that the state will grow more powerful and authoritarian and use that authority to force economic policies along the lines of the model followed by Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and Paul Kagame in Rwanda. Coinciding with a global economic recovery and commodity price bounce-back, those reforms will take the economic growth rate to record highs and trigger massive new job creation and entrepreneurial activity.
- The Tyranny of the Left, in which it’s suggested that the state also becomes extremely authoritarian, but uses that power not for reform, but to extort wealth out of the tax base and the private sector, while suppressing political dissent and civil rights. Land and businesses are nationalised and property rights destroyed. In this future the economy will stutter and stumble along, foreign and domestic investment will dry up, and living standards will fall. South Africa collapses into the grip of a cruel dictatorship and all hope for a better future is lost.
- The Break-up. In this scenario, the state weakens as the economy stalls and, amidst rising levels of internal conflict, South Africans drift apart into enclaves. Behind their high walls, the more prosperous enclaves become de facto private countries with high standards of living. But, outside of the walls, the rural poor will fall under the control of tribal leaders, while an emerging gang culture becomes the de facto government in urban slums. As South Africans turn away from each other, the country splinters irreparably along lines of race and class.
- Or the Rise of the Rainbow. In this future a broad new political coalition allows the private sector to take the lead in returning economic growth rates to levels upwards of 5% – as unemployment rates fall, living standards increase, and South Africa emerges, against all the odds, as a free, open, stable, and prosperous society.
