The exploitation myth keeps South Africans poor - Eustace Davie

Key topics:.The myth of worker exploitation harms economic progress in SAProfit and wages are outcomes of voluntary, mutually beneficial tradeAnti-capitalist rhetoric fosters resentment, dependency, and poverty.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up for the BizNews channel here..By Eustace Davie*.South Africans are told almost daily: Workers are exploited, profits are stolen, and employment is a form of oppression. They are told that business owners are greedy, and that unemployment exists because capitalists refuse to share. These ideas are repeated so often, and with such confidence, that many accept them without question. But repetition does not make a falsehood true. This thinking is not only wrong. It is harmful. It teaches people to resent the very system that allows them to rise through effort and service to others. Worse still, it encourages the belief that poverty can be solved only through redistribution, by taking from others, and that success must be punished rather than celebrated. The claim that profit results from exploitation is the foundation of communist thought. Karl Marx taught that all value is created by labour, and that anything earned over and above wages must have been stolen from workers. This false idea led to the confiscation of property, the destruction of businesses and farms, the replacement of voluntary exchange with forced labour, and the killing of anyone who did not agree. Every country that followed the Marxist path ruined its economy and left its people poorer, less free, and worse off in every respect. Yet the same idea persists in South Africa today. Young people are taught that business owners become wealthy by underpaying and mistreating their staff. Political leaders accuse entrepreneurs of greed. Activists speak as though employers are oppressors and workers are powerless victims. This is neither economics nor justice. It is the language of envy, dressed up as compassion, used to stir resentment and to undermine the very principles that make prosperity possible..Read more: .CR slammed for “protecting” Simelane as she is hit with corruption charges.There is no exploitation in a voluntary agreement. If a person is free to accept a job, free to reject it, and free to look elsewhere, then there is no injustice. The worker provides labour, and the employer provides wages. Each party acts according to their own circumstances and judgement. They agree to the terms freely. This is trade: a voluntary exchange in which both parties expect to be better off. And if the arrangement does not work out, either party is free to walk away. That is not exploitation. That is freedom. The same principle applies to profit - it is not taken from anyone. It is earned by serving others better than all the competitors. A business can only make a profit if it correctly judges what people want and need. It must manage its resources wisely and take risks that pay off. If it fails, it loses money. If it succeeds, the profit is the reward for using scarce resources to create real value for other people. That is not theft, it is entrepreneurship. It is how prosperity and progress are created. In a market economy, people earn money by looking after others. They do so by meeting their needs, solving their problems, or improving their lives. Whether you are baking bread, fixing a roof, designing a building, or writing software, your income reflects how well you help someone else and how scarce your skills are. This is not exploitation; it is cooperation. It is the moral and economic foundation of every peaceful and productive society. The term “wage slavery” is particularly dishonest. A slave has no choice, no pay, and no right to leave. A worker is free to accept or reject employment, to negotiate better terms, or to seek a better opportunity. To compare this with slavery is not only a lie. It is a distortion of history and an insult to those who endured real bondage. This vicious narrative of exploitation has severe consequences. It teaches people to hate the very system that creates opportunity and breeds resentment towards those who take the risk to build businesses and provide employment. Most dangerously of all, it entrenches dependence on politicians who present themselves as saviours, while keeping people trapped in poverty and resentment to preserve and expand their power. This is not freedom. It is the suffocation of initiative, personal responsibility, and hope. The uncritical acceptance of the exploitation myth has done immeasurable damage to South Africa. It has entrenched dependency, crippled job creation, and perpetuated a culture of resentment. The belief that businesses exploit workers has led to a host of damaging laws and policies that make it harder for people to find work, start businesses, and improve their lives. Rather than empowering individuals to succeed, it has kept them trapped in poverty and bitterness, waiting for handouts instead of creating their own opportunities..*Eustace Davie is a Director of the Free Market Foundation and author of Unchain the Child.

The exploitation myth keeps South Africans poor - Eustace Davie

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