ECONOMICS AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN A DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA: ABOUT VALUES, WELFARE AND CHOICE AMONG ALTERNATIVE INSTITUTIONS IN THE FACE OF CONFLICT

Abstract

Freedom of Ihe pike is death for the minnow'

Isaiah Berlin

‘Our world is an eighteen wheelerfull of dynamite, careening down the headway with the pedal to the metal—and the driver is little more than a monkey driven by a mishmash of outmoded emotions and the mistaken illusion that he is something better’.

Jon Franklin

This viewpoint argues against ‘the high priest role’ of economic analysis and economists ‘playing God’. When there are conflicting interests, as is the casebetween races in South Africa, economics does not provide tools for solving or abolishing this conflict. In the end the economist is still left with the need to choose between conflicting interests. The best that economists can do is to try to understand this conflict and to provide information which can be the background for policy-makers and people when choosing preferences and institutions. This includes both value and value-free knowledge when predicting the substantive consequences of change and alternative rights for the different races in South Africa. However, even only providing information does not free the economist from taking sides in the face of conflict; the plea is therefore to explicitly account for hislher own value judgements or that of the institution being served.