Many South Africans seem to be affected by a chronic case of manic depression when it comes to thinking about the future of our country.

On a bad day, South Africa is hurtling towards a race war, and the economy is about to implode under the combined weight of socialism and systemic corruption. The government has been captured by a venal political elite that cares only about its narrow, sectional interests.

Unemployment is up and growth is flatlining. Everyone is trying to hurt you and take your stuff. South Africa is the next Zimbabwe. It’s a hopeless situation, so it’s better to get out while you still can.

On a good day, we are all united in our diversity, wearing our Springbok rugby jerseys with pride and marvelling at our global sporting accomplishments. Relax, bru! Crack open a beer and enjoy some biltong around the braai while bathing in the warm African sunshine.

The GNU will save us from “doomsday”. Be pragmatic and give Ramaphosa a chance! Comply with BEE, DEI, and ESG (“It’s the right thing to do”, after all). Volunteer for Mandela Day. Remember to pack the “sustainable” canvas bags in your car for the next grocery shop – and always use a paper straw.

Everything will be okay. Forget about your worries and your strife. Hakuna matata.

The perils of fatalism

I get it, South Africa is a place of contradictions. But whiplashing between defeatism and sunny optimism is an unhealthy and unproductive way of approaching our problems (of which there are many).

The trouble with being overly optimistic or excessively pessimistic, as Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel has warned, is that both attitudes breed complacency and inaction. If everything will be okay in the end, or we’re all screwed anyway, then why bother to change anything at all? Pollyannas and prophets of doom share a common trait: passively observing from the sidelines.

Jan Smuts observed that “In South Africa, the best never happens, and the worst never happens.”

Try telling that to the young man who hasn’t worked in a decade because of the government’s rigid labour laws. Or the 15-year-old girl shot dead while walking to school in the Cape Flats. Or a new mother whose caesarean section wound turned septic after doctors in an Eastern Cape hospital sealed it with duct tape. Or the business owner who got wiped out in the July 2021 riots. To these people, the worst did in fact happen – and these were entirely avoidable tragedies.

Smuts’s formulation of “neither the best nor the worst” may be oddly comforting, but it can also breed a sense of fatalism. It denies our agency to chart our own course and determine our own destiny.

A better approach

Succeeding in South Africa requires that you cultivate a stoic, unemotional realism about the threats facing you, your family, your business, your community, and your country. But you can’t succeed only by protecting against the downside risks. You must also be open to the abundant opportunities presented by technology, global commerce, and voluntary collaboration with civically engaged communities.

Success requires cultivating a “state-proof” mentality. Assume that the government won’t solve your problems for you. In fact, government is most likely to be the source of your problems, so ignore politics at your peril.

National Health Insurance, Black Economic Empowerment, and Expropriation Without Compensation are real and present dangers that should be steadfastly resisted. And, unfortunately, your likely preferred political party has proven to be either complicit or ineffectual in resisting these state-induced disasters.

Know that either the best or the worst can happen. You would be foolish not to heed the cautionary tale from our northern neighbour. Which is why you should guard against any infringements on private property rights or attempts by politicians to hijack the central bank, the very things that ruined Zimbabwe’s once thriving economy.

There is no “point of no return”

With the right mindset and by making the correct choices, South Africa can get up off the canvas relatively quickly.

Look at the Eastern European countries that emerged broken and battered from half a century of Soviet communism (at a similar time to when apartheid came to an end). Most of them are thriving, modern economies today, while South Africa is lagging. Estonia is a global technology hub. Poland, which had the dubious fate of being invaded by both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, today has almost the same GDP per capita as the United Kingdom and Japan.

Speaking of Japan, it came back from losing a world war and having two of its cities wiped out by nuclear bombs to be one of the world’s leading industrial economies. Elsewhere in Asia, Singapore, once a swamp, is now a centre of global trade and innovation, while South Korea survived a devastating civil war to become a global manufacturing giant. Its northern neighbour, like ours, is a socialist basket case.

In Latin America, Argentina, one of wealthiest economies in the world in the early 20th century, was financially ruined by decades of Peronism. Now, under libertarian President, Javier Milei, Argentina is making a comeback.

If these countries can do it, so can we.

The choice is ours

We have real problems here in South Africa. But none of these problems are unsolvable.

We have a choice about what kind of future we want, and we can either make it happen or let it happen. I choose to make it happen.

As Oscar Wilde once wrote: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

David Ansara is CEO at the Free Market Foundation