Fundamentele uitgangspunte en beginsels oor die rol van die owerheid in die ekonomiese lewe van Suid‐Afrika

Abstract

The constitutional evolution of South Africa has reached the stage where:

1. the Afrikaner nation no longer governs South Africa alone, but where a system of multi‐nation government will take its place;

   the dangers of a breakdown in law and order have become so real that the principles and the institutions in respect of the nature of the South African order, within which the various nations may govern, should be placed beyond doubt.

The classical tradition of Liberty in the philosophy of economic systems has a great deal to contribute towards the debate about these two issues. In the pursuance of freedom and material welfare, respectively, people have developed four main levels of association among themselves, each with its own set of principles for decision making. These levels are, firstly the market, in which individual freedom is greatest and in which the principles of competition are most important; secondly the public or community authorities, in which collective action is necessary and where the principle of consensus is most important; thirdly the institution of state sovereignty in the form of a stable basic order, in which the main principle in the short run is loyalty; and fourthly international relations, in which the principle once again reverts to bargaining based on national freedoms.

The most important immediate guidance for domestic action to be drawn from this tradition of ideas is to distinguish very clearly between welfare functions, on the one hand, and order functions, on the other hand, accepting loyalty to the rule of law as the main principle in the latter case, and competition and consensus respectively, in respect of the former.

The Afrikaner nation must learn to accept consensus politics with respect to welfare functions within a much more decentralised institutional structure while they must not allow the absolute authority needed in the maintenance and safeguarding of a liberal order in South Africa to be destroyed.