From the most basic level of barter in pre-literate times through to the lightning-like trades of modern investment platforms, there have always been buyers and sellers. The medium through which they transact is the market.
Markets are almost as old as humanity — and so is the regulation of them by the authorities. In ancient Egypt, the pharaohs regulated grain distribution, prices and storage. In medieval Europe, charters were granted to regulate when and where markets could operate.
In South Africa, we tend to have gone from one extreme to the other. In the apartheid years, for instance, there was hardly an agricultural commodity that did not have its regulating authority — the Dried Bean Board, the Potato Board, the Wool Board, and so on. Through these boards the minister of agriculture had enormous power to fix prices, set quotas and control exports.
In the late 1990s, under minister Derek Hanekom, the boards were abolished and agriculture was liberalised — the closest the ANC has come to embracing the free market. It remains something of an aberration, given the ANC’s socialist inclinations.
In both cases, the government was able to control the process, but this has become increasingly rare. In the 1970s, hard as it may be to believe, there was no minibus taxi industry. Commuters travelled by bus and train, or they walked. A minority used private vehicles.
With deregulation in 1987, the growing minibus industry was legitimised. By 1990 there were an estimated 80,000 taxis on the roads, growing to between 200,000 and 250,000 in 2010 and to more than 350,000 in 2023, according to a Green Cape report.
It is now an old joke that there is only one thing in South Africa above the state president and the constitution – the taxi industry
The number of taxis increased much faster than the pace of policy response, and early on the genie was out of the bottle. It is now an old joke that there is only one thing in South Africa above the president and the constitution — the taxi industry.
Much the same has happened with the informal traders that the managers of Joburg have been trying to clear from the streets. They claim to be enforcing the bylaws, but the fact is that the city has simply not kept up with accommodating and servicing the needs of those who come to the city. So entrepreneurs have responded to what consumers need, an entirely natural process and an example of a market in operation.
As if to legitimise this, the high court in Joburg has ruled that the city must begin verification, registration, re-registration and allocation processes for informal traders who were removed last week from parts of the city centre. The judge ordered this specifically in terms of existing trading bylaws, local authority notices, and the Local Businesses Act of 1991. It seems the city simply pushed ahead with its own version of forced removals, in the style of the apartheid government.
Joburg mayor Dada Morero’s statement about the need to confirm that whoever is claiming to be a trader is “eligible” and “is a South African citizen” suggests a xenophobic agenda that goes beyond decluttering the pavements. He is surely also mindful of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s demand earlier this year that the city be cleaned up before the G20 gathering this month. If not, what explanation is there for the timing of the crackdown?
Most of these traders are criminals only in administrative terms. In any case, they will soon be back, obeying the laws of supply and demand.
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