For decades now, neoliberalism has been the operating logic of South Africa’s post-apartheid political economy. It came wrapped in the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility, investor confidence, and “tough choices”. But for the majority, it has meant something altogether different: joblessness, hunger, dysfunction, insecurity, and despair. Today, the patient—our country—is not only untreated but actively poisoned by the very medicine that claims to heal.

 The deepening crisis

You don’t need to dig into statistics to see how sick South Africa is. You can feel it. Children are going to school hungry—more than a quarter of them, according to recent figures, are suffering from malnutrition or stunted growth. That is not just a failure of social policy; it is a moral indictment of a system that prioritises budget targets over basic survival.

Unemployment, particularly among the youth, remains among the highest in the world. More than 40% of South Africans are jobless, and most jobs that do exist are precarious, informal, and exploitative. Mass unemployment has become so normalised that politicians now speak of “entrepreneurship” and “self-reliance” and “job opportunities” instead of decent work as a right.

The social fabric is tearing. Gender-based violence, often described as a second pandemic, continues to devastate communities, with the state failing to provide either prevention or justice. Local government, meanwhile, is disintegrating. Auditor-General reports show that the majority of municipalities fail to achieve clean audits—many fail even to deliver basic services. Roads are crumbling. Water systems are collapsing. Sewage is running in the streets. Loadshedding continues to haunt us, with new waves always around the corner.

This is not a country on the mend. This is a society in systemic breakdown.

 Austerity: the wrong prescription

In February, the latest budget was tabled by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana. Once again, it was an austerity budget: a plan to cut spending in the face of economic stagnation and deepening inequality. Yet despite all the evidence that austerity worsens poverty and depresses growth, the GNU is forging ahead.

This budget not only slashes public expenditure; it also opens the door to the privatisation of essential sectors, through an aggressive push for public-private partnerships (PPPs). The Treasury’s plan lays the groundwork for selling off the family silver: our ports, our rail system, even electricity transmission—all offered up to capital under the guise of “efficiency”.

In fact, these are not partnerships at all—they are handovers. They represent the shifting of key levers of the economy into the hands of private corporations, whose only mandate is profit. The idea that this will lead to better service delivery is a cruel illusion. It will lead to higher costs, more job losses, and the further erosion of the state’s capacity to meet the basic needs of its people.

On top of this, the Treasury has adopted a new ‘fiscal anchor’—a legal commitment to run a primary budget surplus. Excluding debt service costs, the budget must balance. No more borrowing for current expenditure. This institutionalises austerity and cripples any attempt to use deficit financing for development. It is a straitjacket on democracy, a legal instrument to block progressive change.

The South African Reserve Bank is playing its part too. Rather than revising its inflation-targeting framework to allow for more developmental space, it is moving in the opposite direction. There are growing calls from within the Bank to replace the current inflation target range of 3% to 6% with a single inflation target point of 3%. This would put even greater downward pressure on wages and leave no room for using monetary policy to stimulate the economy. In other words, the central bank is proposing to restrict the windpipe, even as the patient is gasping for breath.

 The political vacuum

One might expect such drastic and destructive policies to provoke outrage and opposition from across the political spectrum. But here lies another part of the sickness: there is no effective opposition to neoliberalism either inside parliament or outside it. None of the major parties, including those that claim to stand on the left, have offered direction to a mass movement for a coherent or serious alternative.

The ANC, once the standard-bearer of liberation, is now fully committed to neoliberal orthodoxy. The DA, for its part, is not just neoliberal but proud of it—championing austerity, privatisation, and market rule as ends in themselves. And all of the minnow parties just tag along.

The GNU is therefore not a compromise for the sake of the country. It is a coalition for continuity—a bloc of elite consensus around the core principles of neoliberalism. And the political parties are united not by a shared ideology of care, justice, or redistribution but by a shared loyalty to fiscal discipline and market solutions.

Outside the GNU, the EFF has broadly progressive economic policies, but fails to concretise them or to apply them to current situations. And most importantly of all, it fails to mobilise outside its own ranks. It doesn’t want to participate in processes it doesn’t lead. MKP, with its roots in factional ANC politics, mixes ‘social conservatism’ with abstract, populist economic policies. It has no strategic vision for transformation and no orientation to mass mobilisation. Cosatu restricts itself to very occasional performance piece mobilisations, with no appetite for a consistent campaign. And Saftu has very little capability or reach.

 Toward a real alternative: People Against Budget Cuts and beyond

In this landscape of failure and elite consensus, the emergence of grassroots resistance is more urgent than ever. The formation of People Against Budget Cuts (PABC) is a welcome development. Bringing together trade unions and social movements, it represents the beginning of a renewed pushback against the neoliberal assault. But it is only a beginning.

We need more than reactive campaigns. We need to build a powerful and sustained united front that links together the struggles of the unemployed, the working poor, students, women, rural communities, climate justice activists, and progressive professionals. This must be rooted in a clear political programme: a rejection of austerity; a commitment to public ownership and democratic control; an expansion of the social wage; and a new developmental path based on redistribution, ecological sustainability, and social solidarity.

This means rejecting the logic that tells us we must live within our means while the rich get richer and corporations pay almost no tax. It means fighting for an end to illicit financial flows, where wealthy corporations sneak vast amounts of money out of the country, avoiding tax and limiting wage increases. An end to the looting of public goods through outsourcing and procurement corruption. It means demanding a public sector that works, not because it is leaner or more “competitive,” but because it is resourced, capacitated, and driven by social need, not profit.

Above all, it means organising from below. No politician is going to save us. No election will bring transformation, unless it is backed by a powerful movement of the people. The political vacuum must be filled—not with more parties but with mass mobilisation and counter-power.

 A new prescription

South Africa is indeed a sick patient. But neoliberalism is not the cure. It is the disease. And the longer we allow it to dictate our policies, the deeper our crisis will become.

It is time to chart a different course. A people’s course. A course rooted in the recognition that budgets are political, that austerity is violence, and that democracy means more than voting—it means having control over the decisions that shape our lives.

The doctors in charge are treating the illness with poison. If we are to heal, we must remove them from the operating theatre and take back the power to prescribe our own treatment.

Amandla! Collective, Editorial