Trust People More Than Politicians
On October 17, 1989 I was working on the computer in my business on Market Street in San Francisco. It was a little after 5:00 pm. That’s when I heard the roar coming directly at me.
My computer started bouncing on the desk then the electricity went out. The whole building shook. It was an earthquake and a big one, the biggest to hit San Francisco since 1906, when the city was flattened.
The trickle of pedestrians became a flood as the all-electric transportation system — buses included — came to a standstill and soon there was a line of people in the store pleading to use the phone to check on their families. I was still there two hours later as people continued to call home to check on loved ones.
I heard stories how in downtown the homeless, winos and others often looked down upon dusted themselves off and started directing traffic — no traffic robots were left working. A double-decker highway collapsed and civilians tied ladders together to get up to the first level and started rescuing people from their crushed cars. Elsewhere civilians were using garden hoses to fight fires and rushing the injured to hospital.
Our local drug store gave away candles and batteries to those who needed them. Restaurants set up portable kitchens in the parks and feed people for free. A disaster that took all of 10 to 15 seconds united the city.
Right now many people are shaking their heads about the man-made disaster hitting South Africa — the looting and the pillaging by certain elements. In both the case of the earthquake and the looting many overlooked the other side of the story. I told the story of what happened in San Francisco because it was an example of people at their best.
I once thought if I ever seriously ran for office my slogan would be “Trust the People.” More often than we give them credit the people are the source of solutions while politicians and government often make a proper mess of things. Frequently the media is so focused on the problems of life they ignore the solutions, which means they often ignore the people.
The vandals were like the earthquake, destroying livelihoods and wealth. They made the nation worse off. Katlego Motati, of Soweto, wisely noted, “At the end of the day, we will be struggling because of this. Our economy is going to be really damaged. People my age, in my neighborhood, are bragging about stealing things and getting shopping carts full of stuff. Soon they will be coming to my place to borrow sugar. Those things won’t help them.”
Ms. Motati is totally correct — redistribution of wealth, whether done by politicians or violent thugs in the streets, destroys wealth. It makes everyone poorer. The secret to wealth creation is to lift the bottom up, not to tear the top down.
The earthquake only destroyed wealth and made the city of San Francisco poorer. The rioters only destroyed wealth and made South Africa poorer. Both disasters destroyed wealth.
Yet in both cases the best of humanity was seen as well. In Durban, the South African National Taxi Association organized a civilian-led clean up of the CBD. The South African described it: “Taxi drivers, students, businessmen and other members of the community came together to clean the CBD so that things can at least go back to normal.”
Ms. Motati, who I quoted earlier, was one of the civilians who came out to stand guard at the Maponya Mall in Soweto. “I’m standing here against vandals and hooligans,” she said. In Tshwane the taxi association announced they had “taken over the protection of three malls in Soshanguve.”
In Nelson Mandela Bay, Mayor Ngaba Bhanga urged the public to join efforts to protect the city from vandals. He told civilians, the looters “are not going to come closer here. We’ll protect this city with you.” The Sunday Times noted, “Taxi associations continued mobilising their members to protect businesses in Kariega, KwaNobuhle and surrounding areas.
In Uitenhage taxi association chair Mbuyiseli Mfengu said, “We are making sure business does not grind to a halt, shops must stay open because job losses are common.”
Whether the disaster is natural, or the results of politics gone mad, we see the people often come together to solve the problem while the political process slowly tries to grasp the situation.
This tendency is one reason I often advocate, not the redistribution of wealth, but the redistribution of power from politicians back to the people. It is why I support donations to micro-loan organizations instead of foreign aid. In general I trust the people more than I trust the politicians.
This originally appeared in City Press on July 29, 2021.
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