'n Ekonomiese perspektief op bemagtiging : 'n herdefiniering van welvaartskeppende institusies

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY : The economic growth that can have a real impact on poverty or the empowermentproblem in South Africa remains unrealised. A microeconomic perspective on theempowerment problem in South Africa is given in the thesis by taking a NewInstitutional Economic (NIE) stance. The NIE perspective reveals that the developmentproblem at microlevel in South Africa is also derived from the collective character of theenvironment in which persons targetted for empowerment often find themselves.The point of departure of the analysis is that in order to understand what empowerment issupposed to entail, the firm as the institution which generates products and services, andhow it connects with the rest of the economy needs to be understood. Thisunderstanding is formed by setting the firm against the economic problem, namelypeople's infinite needs in the presence of scarcity and the potensial for opportunism thatthe situation creates. Transaction costs become the explaining variable of the firm againstthe backdrop of the economic problem and by distinguishing it from input costs.The understanding of the institutions that addresses the economic problem results inempowerment being defined as gaining a tradable asset and that the person who gains theasset has the ability to trade it in a sustainable manner, i.e. the person has the ability tolower transaction costs to competitive levels. From this it follows that empowermentcannot be separated from the environment, for the right of exclusion implied by atradable asset needs to be derived from the community. The institutions that address theeconomic problem are therefore compared with the institutional environment in whichSouth Africans targetted for empowerment find themselves. In this manner a morecomplete picture of the empowerment problem in South Africa is created. Morecomplete, because not only friction in the market or discrimination under the previousregime is presented as explanation for underdevelopment.The insights derived from the analysis lead to a framework which can gauge theempowerment potential of a empowerment scheme, a clear picture of workerparticipation's empowerment potential and critique of the current land reformprogramme. The thesis distinguishes between empowerment and wealth-generatingempowerment, with the last requiring as bottom line a methaphysical framework whichleaves a community grateful.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University