by Patrick McLaughlin – parlyreportSA.com
ParlyReportSA provides business and political analysis from Parliament, Cape Town.

Second-Order Thinking has helped South Africa to arrive at a turning point.  This is a moment that demands what strategist Clem Sunter once called “high road” thinking. What’s needed now is second-order thinking: not just asking what happens next, but what happens after that.

Superficially, the formation of the Government of National Unity looked like a hopeful step, suggesting an appetite for pragmatism over populism. But under the surface, South Africa has remained shackled to policies and ideologies that have undermined growth: cadre deployment, a failing state machinery, race-based procurement, and the protection of entrenched interests.

It’s easy to cheer the appointment of a moderate minister or the shelving of an unpopular bill. But if deeper reform doesn’t follow, what comes next? If private investment continues to flee due to hostile legislation, what industries collapse next?  At what point will grants fail and the money simply runs out?

Second-order thinking helps reveal a new political map.   Consider this.  South Africa’s battle is no longer primarily between ANC and DA, or Left and Right, but between Realists and Idealists. On one side are those who understand that wealth must be created before it can be redistributed; on the other are those who still believe in central planning, state control, and slogans over spreadsheets. the GNU has yto start motivating for something broader yto make a breakthrough.  DA’s Steennhuisen needs to take a course on Second-Level thinking.

Start Thinking Like a Survivor

Here is where geopolitics enters the picture. The U.S. Magnitsky Act and broader Western hostility to corrupt or anti-Western regimes raise the stakes. Certain ANC-linked individuals, including allies of the RET (Radical Economic Transformation) faction, may find themselves isolated or even sanctioned if South Africa continues drifting nowhere with the BRICS authoritarian bloc or actively undermines Western-aligned institutions.

That possibility introduces a layer of desperation. Some politicians now face a personal, existential threat if Western ties are strengthened. Their incentive is to sink the ship rather than let it be steered in a new direction.  ANC Secretary Fikile Mabula says the comrades are not prepared to replace BEE with a needs-based empowerment framework nor shift  from race quotas to merit and skills. As the largest party, the ANC is not going  dismantle dysfunctional SOEs and open key sectors to competition, in fact that have dreamt up two new monsters to drain the fiscus.

Head to head

South Africa’s choice is no longer between good and bad policies. It’s between reality and delusion.

Second-Order thinkers—those who ask what the consequences of our current actions will be in five or ten years—are needed now more than ever. The good news? Some are already inside government. The bad news? They are outnumbered.

The time has come to find them, support them, and strengthen their hand. Not out of idealism, but out of necessity. Because the alternative isn’t another missed opportunity. It’s collapse.

Patrick McLaughlin

editor