An Interlude on Academic Wealth Distribution

I freely admit that I enjoy satire; must secondly also admit that virtually any Academically inclined Prognosis on Financial matters give me the giggles; consequently I may as well admit that a recent Post by a South African Academic of note made me laugh so long and very loud too that my neighbors had to come in to subdue me before the police would have come to place me under arrest for laughing loudly down the streets and causing a public disturbance.

 The highly esteemed Academic going under the name of Chris Malekane of Wits, one of our great University Institutions well known around the Globe, produced this marvel of modern Academic profoundness:

 Academic: Transfer wealth

 Read it and spent some time browsing through the flood of comments.

 My learned Research Colleague obviously chose to ignore all work readily available on Colonialism and the part it played in bringing development to the World; the creation of Trade, the discovery and development of mineral resources and the benefits of education, Capitalism and International Trade between the nations of the World.

 He obviously also doesn’t understand that The Wealth that this brought to our land has already been distributed fair and square.

 He doesn’t know much of the recent History of the land either and I will enlighten him briefly, speaking from memory to avoid too many links and references to material that should be freely obtainable.  Let me just summarize.

 Unbundling of colonialism of Africa started in full earnest in 1957 and was completed by 1980.  In each and every instance the Oligarchy to take over as Government redistributed the Wealth.

 Allow me a few statistics from South Africa.  In 1977 the personal Income tax rate for taxable incoming exceeding R 28 000 per annum was taxed at 72%; e.g. let us take a person who had a taxable income of R 328 000 in 1977.  He would have paid the basic tax on the R 28 000 plus a full R 216 000 of the remaining R 300 000, thus leaving him with R 84 000 plus the remainder after tax on the basic R 28 000, probably leaving him with a total of around 100 000 bucks.

 Now bear in mind that in that year and all along until 1993 the country had 78 individuals in this position sometimes referred to as the Super tax Bracket for people earning more than R 250 000 per annum.  They were all entrepreneurs; not a single salaried person ever got even close to that.

 Until 1994 that is; the new Oligarchy regime in Governance was keen to rectify the imbalances of the bad past; after all voting for it setting their own salaries at around R 60 000 for starters then moved it real fast up to R 100 000 per month.  By the end of 1994 the original 78 in the Super tax Bracket had increased to about 3 000 souls; by the end of 2000 the numbers had risen to [my guess] about 10 000 souls and the salary levels to R 250 000 per month as against the old R 250 000 per annum.  Old age pensions and disability income protection for the unfortunate ones have continued to grow at snail’s pace and now stands at just a little over a breadline R 1 000 per month.

 The original 78 were probably all Caucasian [maybe one or two exceptions] but almost the entire 10 000 new additions are all Black.

 By now the Oligarchy of 10 000 also practically owns the right to any new mineral exploration; they control it and have made it clear that there is no need to nationalize it because they have effective control over all mineral and mining rights in any event.  Other resources such as Construction and Transportation are controlled by them too and one can anticipate that the ranks of the 10 000 may swell to around 15 000 where it will more or less stabilize and no more newcomers will be allowed in.

 Surely yes, at the level just below the 15 000 we have maybe another 100 000 or so drawing good salaries of between R 25 000 to R 50 000 per month but it is a limited membership.  Most are black and about half will have to be female; that’s the law.

 Professor, Doctoro my learned Research Colleague, there is not going to be any more distribution of wealth.  Five hundred thousand new learners will leave school this year with their High School certificates in hand; a few with connections and/or family in the élite group of 15 000 will go onto University and a few of them will be allowed into the privileged circle of the neo- rich as older ones die but the rest of the 2012 school leavers will join the lines of the unemployed.

 That’s reality, my learned colleague.  The present élite 15 000 in charge of the Oligarchy Regime Governing our land will not allow any further re-distribution of any wealth.  They intend to keep it for themselves, for their families and their Friends.

 Ike Jakson

Feel free to contact me at ikejakson@gmail.com

 

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