BEE Good For Whites? 1
Although I’ve never publicised it here, one of my pet theories about BEE is that it will actually turn out to be beneficial for whites because it will force them to be more entrepeneurial and ultimately result in whites owning and running even more businesses in SA. And it looks like that is what could be happening. According to recently released reports the number of white males who are self employed has increased from 21.1% in 2001 to 25.5% today. For white woman the number is even better going from 8.8% to 14.7%.
It’s ironic that the scheme designed to improve the financial and economic participation of a sector of society winds up promoting participation of a completely different sector. The fact is that this should have been expected. History is rife with examples of a certain group of people being excluded from some economic activity only for them to go and become highly successful in another area.
As is the rule of small business not every attempt to start a small business is successful however the more people you have from a particular sector attempting to be entrepeneurs the more people from that sector will eventually succeed. Economist Sampie Terreblanche (author of ‘A History of Inequality in South Africa’) says that for white males:I wonder if the past 12 years have not been the best in their entire history.
Couldn’t agree more – being a self-starter myself, I think this is definitely a ‘positive’ spin off from BEE. And the continued positive is that small business drives modern economies, which can only be good for SA.