South Africa is “sleep-walking towards a cliff

The Guy
Jul 2
5 min read

From Blame to Renewal – a plain-language tour through Herman Singh & Ansgar Pabst’s rescue-plan for South Africa

1. The wake-up call

When digital-strategy guru Herman Singh warns that South Africa is “sleep-walking towards a cliff”, he isn’t being dramatic, he’s summarising the evidence: empty coffers, broken power lines, restless youth and a leadership vacuum. Fellow innovator Ansgar Pabst agrees, so the two wrote a 12-page discussion paper with a blunt headline question:

Can we copy the way Germany climbed out of the ruins of 1945 – and do it by 2026?

They call their moment of truth South Africa’s “Zero Hour” – the point where denial is no longer an option and rebuilding must start immediately.

2. Why look at Germany?

Post-war West Germany had no money, no trust in government and cities reduced to rubble, yet a generation later it was an export powerhouse. Singh & Pabst highlight one uncomfortable choice that made the miracle possible: keep the engineers, fix the systems, move on.

Instead of firing every tainted technician, the new leaders repurposed competence under strict new rules and oversight – and the lights came back on .

The organising idea behind that turnaround was Ordoliberalism – freedom to trade, but inside a ring-fence of tough, predictable rules and courts that actually work . Think of it as “free markets with a referee.”

3. What went wrong at home?

South Africa after 1994 chose moral justice first, a noble aim, but often sidelined the engineers, planners and auditors who knew how to keep the grid, the railways and the tax office running.

Result: “credibility without capability,” in the authors’ words . Blackouts, port delays and potholes are symptoms of that choice. Add relentless social-media rage and foreign meddling, and the slow burn feels like a countdown.

4. Seven moves to change direction (translated into everyday language)

#	What the paper says	What it means in plain English
1	Leadership Alignment – hire for competence & courage	Put do-ers, not slogans, in charge.
2	Institutional Pragmatism – reform without ruining	Bring retired experts back, pair them with young talent.
3	Economic Reinvention – from grants to growth	Social grants stop the bleeding; new factories create the job.
4	Cultural Accountability – expectation → participation	Citizens can’t outsource the future; volunteer, vote, watchdog.
5	Rewrite the Social Compact – ask “What do we build?”	Shared duties as well as shared rights.
6	Coalition Realignment – purpose over purity	Politics must trade grandstanding for practical deals that pass.
7	Break Economic Concentration – open the club	Fewer insider deals, more chances for township and SME players.

To glue these pieces together they propose a new post in large firms and ministries: Chief Alignment Officer (CAO) – someone whose full-time job is to break silos and keep everyone honest about delivery dates .

5. Three futures we could choose

Choice	Snapshot
Purpose Rebuilds	We fix institutions, earn trust, and dignity returns
Drifting in Denial	Press briefings replace repairs; lights still flicker
Collapse of the Civic Compact	State services fail, violence normalises, elites barricade themselves

Singh & Pabst warn that the budget hole is widening fast; “we’re running out of fiscal runway” . The 2026 election is, in their words, “the last off-ramp before full-blown crisis.”

6. Why bother? Because the upside is huge

Africa has the planet’s youngest population and rising consumer power. South Africa, still the continent’s most industrialised economy, could be the launch-pad – if it fixes the basics . In plain talk: sort out the grid, the trains and the courts, and investors will queue.

7. The bottom line

Don’t torch the old skills – recycle them under new, clean rules.
Swap blame for building – talk-shops out, work-shops in.
Deliver first, tweet later – credibility follows capability.

Singh and Pabst aren’t selling miracle formulas; they’re offering a DIY kit proven in tougher times elsewhere. The question isn’t whether the blueprint works – Germany’s skyline answers that. The question is whether South Africans, from cabinet rooms to street corners, decide to pick up the tools.

Zero Hour is already ticking.

Download the Full Discussion Paper Below and Plaese Share

Follow Herman and Ansgar at the links below

Herman Singh Linkedin Profile: Click Here

Herman Singh Website: Click Here

Ansgar Pabst Linkedin Profile: Click Here

Ansgar Pabst Website: Click Here

Ordoliberalism in a nutshell

Think of it as Germany’s home-grown remix of liberal market economics: free markets, yes —but only inside a rule-book written (and vigorously enforced) by a strong, legally minded state. The goal isn’t laissez-faire; it’s an “economic constitution” that keeps competition fair, prices stable and private power from morphing into political power.

Where did it come from?

When & where	Who & what happened	Why it mattered
Early 1930s – Freiburg University	Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm, Leonhard Miksch and friends start debating how to rebuild capitalism after the Great Depression and rising dictatorships.	They coin the term Ordnungspolitik (“policy of order”)—the state must set the rules of competition, not play the game.
1948 – Journal *ORDO*	The group launches an annual yearbook on “economic and social order.”	Gives the school a platform and the name Ordoliberalism (“ordo” = orderly framework).
Post-1945 West Germany	Economics minister Ludwig Erhard applies their ideas—lifting price controls, guarding against cartels, pairing markets with a social safety net.	Fuels the Wirtschaftswunder (“economic miracle”) and the trademark Social Market Economy model.

The six classic rules (Eucken’s “interdependence of orders”)

Price stability first – obsess over low inflation.
Open competition everywhere – smash cartels and monopolies.
Secure property rights – investors need certainty.
Freedom of contract – but no exploitative clauses.
Unlimited liability – entrepreneurs bear the risk, not taxpayers.
Predictable, stability-oriented fiscal policy – balanced budgets, no boom-bust pump-priming.

(Notice the Chicago School overlaps on competition, but ordoliberals still want a referee on the field; they reject big Keynesian stimulus and pure laissez-faire alike.)

How is it different from…?

Classical laissez-faire liberalism – Ordoliberals say markets don’t police themselves; the state must craft and guard the competitive order.

Anglo-Saxon neoliberalism (e.g., Chicago School) – Both love markets, but ordoliberals give much more weight to anti-monopoly law, central-bank independence, and legal norms over raw efficiency.

Keynesian demand management – They distrust discretionary fiscal or monetary stimulus, fearing it distorts price signals and breeds cronyism.

Why does it still matter?

EU debt and deficit rules: Germany’s push for tight fiscal ceilings during the euro-crisis echoed ordoliberal fear of runaway state spending.

Competition policy: The EU’s tough antitrust watchdogs trace their DNA to ordoliberal cartel-busting logic.

Central-bank culture: The European Central Bank’s price-stability mandate owes more to Freiburg than to Chicago.

Critiques in plain language

Supporters say…	Critics say…
A clear rule-book + real competition = prosperity without plutocracy.	Rules can get so rigid that governments can’t respond quickly to crises (see the euro-zone slump).
Strong antitrust keeps “too-big-to-fail” firms from hijacking politics.	It underplays inequality & social insurance,ordoliberalism assumes gains will trickle fairly.
Independent central banks tame inflation expectations.	An almost religious devotion to balanced budgets can choke growth.

Bottom line:

Ordoliberalism is neither “hands-off” capitalism nor heavy-handed statism. Picture a soccer match: the state is the strict referee and groundskeeper, making sure the pitch is level, the rules are clear, and any cartel-like foul gets an instant red card—then it steps back and lets the players hustle. That compromise shaped modern Germany and still echoes through European economic policy today.