Three centuries ago, on 24 June 1716, a very important letter arrived from Amsterdam in Cape Town; a letter that, according to John X Merriman two centuries later, would change the future of what would become South Africa. Written by the Board of the Dutch East India Company (the VOC), the letter requested the Council of Policy in Cape Town to reflect on the economic needs of the still small and fragile colonial settlement. In particular, the Board wanted to know whether the Council of Policy would recommend more European immigration to the Cape or whether an increase in slave arrivals would be preferred.
A year later, seven members of the Council responded. Six members recommended that slavery was the better choice. The reason was simple: slaves could supply cheaper labour than European wage labourers. And because all agricultural output had to be sold to the Company stores in Cape Town, cheap labour meant that the Company could pay farmers less for their produce, allowing the Company to make a very decent return when reselling the produce to passing ships.
One member of the Council of Policy, however, disagreed. Dominique Marius Pasques de Chavonnes instead made a case for encouraging European immigrants. Though slavery would be more profitable in the short run, he argued that the settlement of free people would be better for the economy, and thus for the Company, in the long run. Free men have an incentive to invent while slaves do not, he said, pre-empting what Adam Smith would write in his Wealth of Nations half a century later. And invention is the root of productivity and prosperity.
It’s no surprise that the shareholders in Amsterdam chose the advice of the six men that appealed to their immediate interests. After 1717, European immigration slowed considerably, and slave arrivals from modern-day Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Madagascar and Mozambique increased. The Cape became a slave economy, with high levels of inequality, an inequality that has still not abated. In 1776, Adam Smith would write in his Wealth of Nations that ‘of all the expedients that can well be contrived to stunt the natural growth of a new colony, that of an exclusive company is undoubtedly the most effectual’. DM Pasques de Chavonnes and Adam Smith had recognized the myopia of firms.
Today this is STILL true.
The short-sighted mass-sum of peoples of European descent is STILL prevalent – 6 out 7 will choose not to see the long-term consequences of their short-term choices.
Our as a volk has been focused far too much on short-term ideals – “I just want better service delivery – So I will vote for the DA, in 5 years they will do a better job that the ANC”, much like the VOC shareholders three-hundred years ago, we have shifted ourselves down a path from which it is will ultimately – destroy us.
Will you choose to be the 1 out of the 7 and survive?
That choice is up to YOU.
By Dean Dart
Read the original article on Front Nasionaal SA – blad
South Africa Today – South Africa News
