Malcolm Ray — The Tyranny Of Growth

And once again, it is what's involved in the special guest. Gentlemen, I've been looking to chat to you for a while now. He is the author of a fascinating book, a book that when it first arrived on my desktop, I thought, oh, this is going to be one of those really boring kind of academic books. It's not. It's a book I believe everybody should read. The Tourney of Growth. Why capitalism has triumphed in the West and failed in Africa. And the author joining me at this time is Malcolm Ray. Hello to you, Malcolm. Hi, David. I am very happy to chat to you about this, because like I said, I thought this was going to be one of those tomes and it was going to be, you know, a slog to read it. And it's not. So before we get into the actual book, talk to me a little bit about yourself, Malcolm Ray. I mean, but you grew up where did what, how, why. I know there was a bit of a there was a time when you were part of the the anti apartheid movement. Talk to me about those things, because that couldn't have been easy times for me. Yes. So that's taking me back. So I yeah, I thought I started. I guess in a sense, my career began lack of a better word. My my my working life began in in during the 1980s, which, you know, as you know, was a very

tense time in South Africa. You know, I sort of. Got involved in in the trade, the trade union movement around that time, which, you know, what is now known as Qusatu was still a sort of an embryonic creature. And so I got involved in building many of the unions that didn't exist, you know, that we sort of know of today.

And, you know, sort of stayed there in a sense until the early 1990s when when the transition in South Africa to democracy started. I guess in a sense, that period, you know, was interesting for a number of reasons. It it it probably was my baptism into

you know, thinking about life and the world we live in and in different ways to the sort of youthful exuberance of, you know, school and university and all that. I started to look at at the world, you know, and the transition that was underway in South Africa to democracy through a new lens. And I think some of my, you know, sort of my my sort of philosophies of the world were shaped during that time. So in one sense, a lot of my ideas were shaped by, you know, what I would call the university of of struggle. You know, more than academia. And, yeah, and then, you know, sort of, you know, closer to 94 and then post 94. I by default really got involved in journalism. I mean, I I really started journalism more as as as as as as propaganda, you know, for the liberation struggle, writing op ed pieces, various newspapers and so on.

But, you know, my love for writing was embedded there and I stayed in journalism and, you know, through the 90s and then into the 2000s, you know, got into a lot of ground level feature writing for the Sunday independent to various other newspapers. And then landed up where, I guess, journalists go to die. You know, I became an editor.

It kills your creativity. You know, not realizing at the time, I took it on as a challenge, really. And it was finance editing of all things. I took it on as a challenge. Not realizing that being an editor is less about, you know, what you see in the movies and read about in in in feature stories. It really is about bottom lines and increasingly so today, I guess. You know, where where where editors are really glorified CEOs and, you know, you're chasing advertising revenue and you're dealing with marketing and those sorts of things. And only a small percentage of what you do is really about writing and and journalism. So, you know, I got involved in that. And I think, you know, one of the lessons of editing various magazines, you know, it was that numbers finance can be very intimidating for

for readers beyond the core, you know, target markets. It can be very intimidating. And a lot of people sort of, you know, you were saying that the book the book seemed like something that you wouldn't necessarily have have read until you read it. The same with finance journalism. A lot of people stay away from it precisely because of the perception that it's a number narrative kind of thing. So, you know, I think it was a lesson, you know, and even though I as editor of various magazines tried to to introduce a new style, if you like, of reporting on these things, you know, bringing people into the narrative, you know, the importance of people in determining outcomes rather than dry numbers. You know, journalism and in terms of finance and business has been and will always be what it is, you know, it's essentially about businesses and it's about turnover and it's about profit and those sorts of things. And people watch markets for that reason. So, you know, I I guess I became disillusioned today. But, you know, I got to a point around 2010 when, frankly, you know, at the time I was editor of Fenwick magazine. And I walked into work on a Thursday. And those days, essentially, when the magazine goes to bed, it goes to press.

And I walked into the newsroom and I actually decided on the spot that I had two choices. One is I could continue doing that and I could have. And the others I could I could resign and just take a leap of faith, you know, which is what I did. You know, I decided on the spot to resign.

I decided that I wanted to write. And I decided that sitting in meetings and discussing bottom lines was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And it was quite a risk. You know, it was a leap. Journalism around 2010, if you recall, was starting to go out on to go through its own revolution. You know, online media was was becoming the thing. Print media was declining. A new sort of journalism was emerging. Soundbite journalism rather than long, long, long features, et cetera, et cetera.

The industry was being disrupted. So it was quite a leap. You know, it was a risk, but it it was a leap. I took and quite frankly, in hindsight, I don't regret.

You know, over the years since then, I I did a lot of work in research and academia. And in 2016,

I decided to, you know, very quickly write a book. The Theismus Paul Movement had begun and I wrote a book called Freefall,

which was a kind of narrative history. And then aimed at everybody and very simple prose.

And then, of course, you know, that led to what became, you know, last year, the tyranny of growth. And that was written. And I guess that's the subject of this conversation that was written in the crucible of the heat of one of the hard lockdowns in South Africa. And it was written really in that specific context. You know, when the world was,

you know, a wash with with disaster uncertainty, you know, jobs were being lost, people's lives were being lost. You know, people were being put in short time. Was massive uncertainty about what was going to happen next. And the question I felt in everybody's minds was, you know, where is this going and when is it going to end? Is it going to end? And I think more than that, a lot of people who were quite comfortable, you know, sort of living a normal life before COVID hits and assuming that the world we live in is OK, you know, that everything that we think we know is normal. Suddenly, people were starting to to wonder whether it is OK. You know, in a sense, COVID had sort of amplified, almost magnified problems that had always been there. But we're not as stark and in your face. And I wanted to sort of grapple with some of these questions. And that that that is how, quite frankly, Tony of Growth was born. It was it was born out of questions that I thought people were asking. But, you know, couldn't quite answer.

And in writing the book. I knew that the book was always going to be about economics, but in writing the book, I wanted to write it in a way that I mean, the question I asked myself was how could this book reach everybody? You know, and not just a bunch of academics and economists and policy makers and government. How could I actually write this book in a way that resonated with ordinary people who were actually asking these questions, you know, who were worried about the world we lived in and we were living in and worried about the future? And so, yeah, you know, in a sense, that's that's how I got to tyranny. You know, it's been a long journey in one sense, but in another it was actually quite, you know, a compressed moment. And in the background of that moment in 2010, August 2020, sorry, my mother had died from Covid, you know. So in a sense, it was personal as well as a sort of a narrative, a broader narrative history that related to everybody. It was it was quite a personal, I'll just say for me, you know, and I dedicated the book to her memory. So, yeah, David, I mean, in a sense, you know, it's it's it's it was, if you like, for me, something that I could have written quite sooner, but it was a long journey that made sense in this this troubled moment that we're still living in, you know.

Well, we are, but we'll get into that. We are chatting to my special guest, Malcolm Ray, author of The Tureny of Growth. Why capitalism has triumphed in the West and failed in Africa. We'll be back with more from Malcolm in just a bit. This is what's involved. So good to have you along with us.

And we're back with my special guest, Malcolm Ray. We're talking about the book, The Tureny of Growth. So what caught me right from the beginning is that because I thought it was going to be a boring economics book and I'd have to climb my way through it and then make the appropriate noises afterwards, which I'm very bad at doing, by the way. So I got into this. And the first thing that struck me is I've been for a long while and I used to be what I would refer to as a rabid capitalist. OK, it was all about making money, making money as fast as possible and accumulating as much as possible. And over the last little while, I got to thinking, I like. And as you say, you know, capitalism broken in Africa. And I thought, is it possible? Can capitalism as we know it be broken? And your book does talk to a lot of those sorts of questions. One of them, of course, is this whole idea that

in Africa, our economies, it's just an African problem. And it's because generally we don't know what we're doing, you know, and there's all sorts of reasons and we talk corruption, et cetera, et cetera. But it's it's way deeper than that, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, you know, you're you're you're on the mark. I mean, you send you what you what you've the question that you you've raised here goes to the very core of this book. And in fact, on one level, it's it's if you like, it's the sort of it's the thesis of the book. You know, in in in in grappling with the question broadly speaking of what was going on in the world, you know, I

I had to ask myself, well, if if if all the stuff is going on in the world, then then how does the place we live in? Not just the country, but the continent that we call home. How does that fit into the, you know, the global narrative? And you're right. So, you know, it's become as you know, it's become fashionable, you know, within not just within countries, but within the African Union. And and quite frankly, you know, among multilateral institutions in the world these days to talk about African problems, as you know, you know, so it's about African problems. And then the next rider to that is African problems needing African solutions. Right. So, you know, I saw this as an own goal in a sense. And and in the context of questions people were raising during COVID, I wanted to understand whether we could actually speak, you know, with reasonable confidence of the plight of Africa as almost a condition that Africans themselves have created and and and a condition that required uniquely African solutions. I quite frankly, over the years as an editor, struggle to understand what that means. So, you know, in a sense, what what I did was I situated

the African continent in a kind of historical narrative, an act of historical journey. Right. And I felt that in order to to to answer the question, where does the problem come from, I had to sort of almost find the source. So, you know, if you think about the book, right. I mean, you said that it's not a difficult read. Exactly. The book is like a if I could use the metaphor, it's like a GDP gross domestic product were a person, then then the book is a kind of biography of the birth of GDP.

It's evolution in the world and then in the African continent into the kind of Frankenstein monster that that became. And I consider that we all we all accept GDP gross domestic product, the single number, you know, as something normal, something natural. It's the thing that, in a sense, determines our goals and priorities at government level, continental level, and then at the most basic level of individuals and families. It's supposed to be the thing that determines either success or failure in an economy.

And yet it's it's origins could not be more mythologized by each each one of us. Right. So I in writing the book, I trace the genealogy of of of GDP in Africa. Right. And I trace it back to the to the origins of GDP in the post Second World War context in the United States. And I think that's important because most people don't know this. I mean, most people assume that GDP and the origins of capitalism go hand in glove. And that that couldn't be further from the truth. Capitalism, capitalism, as we know, it has been around for a few centuries. GDP has been around for a century only, you know. So in a sense, everything that we've normalized. Is a recent phenomenon, you know, and so, you know, and it's a phenomenon that in a sense wasn't something that emerged, you know, by force of natural laws of economics or anything like that. It was actually a result of, you know, a cast of characters. Initially in the United States and then in Europe and then in Africa, who who acted out this drama, you know, on a global stage. It was about, you know, massive contestations of power between the United States after the Second World War and Europe and then the rest of the world, including the Soviet Union.

It was an ideological battle, you know, that that in a sense led to this thing called GDP. How it came to be a phenomenon in Africa and how it came to.

Two, two, two, two, two, two. You know, how it is out in the kind of consequences we experience today was really a result of, in a sense, how the United States exported this thing called debt to the African continent and then used that right. Using GDP as a measure, the jet debt to GDP ratio to discipline, it was a disciplining whip to discipline African countries into complying with the U.S.'s growth doctrine and and its expansionist, you know, policies. So in one sense, GDP, we can say, was midwife, right? By the United States into Africa as a measure and a goal. You know, the United States attempt to sort of expand its economic interest.

No, that part of the book was absolutely fascinating for me because I'd never looked at it that way. And, you know, when you look at the fact that the continent of Africa in general has been in debt crisis since, what, the 80s? And I've often looked at this and gone. A debt always seems to be piling up, but we're never seeming to get ahead of this thing. And, you know, it does look like the goalposts get moved fairly regularly. So I want to dive in a little bit more and find out some more about that when we come back and we'll chat further with my guest, Malcolm Ray, author of The Tyranny of Growth. This is what's involved back in a bit.

And we're back with my special guest, Malcolm Ray. So, Malcolm, this where we currently sit today in terms of South Africa, the African continent, you know, I don't think I'm wrong in saying it's a mess. And, you know, it has been engineered that we just remain in debt. And, you know, the continent continues to get raped and pillaged. But it's done with a velvet glove.

Am I correct in this? Yeah, I'm looking at the kind of what we experienced, the amazing. I mean, the sort of almost it's almost an egregious thing. I mean, it's weird when you think about it. But, you know, the the condition of the African continent today, it's almost as if it's frozen in time. It's no different from the condition of the African continent in the 1970s and 1980s when when the problems really started to emerge. You know, when, you know, through what I call in the book Resource Smashing Grabs, you know, during the 1970s and the 1980s. Using the debt instruments, you know, African countries were in a sense they were they were compelled to you know, comply with the mercenary pursuits of multinationals from the United States and Europe. So, you know, what what we were doing over here was we were exporting essentially, we were exporting profits that multinationals made from the exploitation of raw materials back to the host countries. And we were experiencing, you know, nets losses in terms of what's called gross national product. So gross national product, as opposed to gross domestic product, you know, comprises the global share, whereas GDP is the domestic share. So in a sense, in a sense, the kind of the the percentage return to the African continent was a loss.

And if you look at South Africa as an example, right? And I mean, just recently, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his his state of the nation address and it was quite peculiar because he delivered it in the Cape Town city or out within Parliament, you know, so to carry the stain and sense of a failing state. But for a bigger reason, I think the speech was peculiar because it was the first time since his presidency that we got a sense of his policy position. I think what COVID did was it sort of muffled all of that. And it provided a pretext to, you know, to escape policy positions. But what was interesting about that was he went on about debt to GDP ratio being massive. I think it's well over 70 percent debt to GDP in South Africa. And if you look at at that, OK, I mean, he's he's he's called like many African countries that experience similar problems, has been for more private sector investment. Nothing wrong with that. It's been for more foreign direct investment. In theory, nothing wrong with that. But when you locate that in terms of what I've just said, that, you know, in terms of the history, the roots of the debt crisis in the African continent, using GDP as as an instrument and then using debt as an instrument on top of that, then you've got to look at the problem in a different way. Right.

South Africa as an example, South Africa, since 1994, despite foreign direct investment coming into the country, has actually experienced a net loss in terms of GDP of three percent. So in other words, we've been losing money to FDI rather than, you know, gaining revenue to FDI. And that's the very same story in the rest of the African continent. Now, if you ask yourself why this is happening, I started saying that the peculiar thing about the African continent is that what we experiencing today is a frozen moment. It's it's the very same thing that we experienced when the problems first began off to colonialism, you know, in the 1970s and 1980s. It's the very same problem. You know, one where we're exporting raw product

and losing and losing revenue in the process to we're measuring growth by something called GDP. Right. Which excludes the benefits, the potential benefits of any kind of investment to the very countries

in the continent that are, you know, in a sense, players in the game. We're experiencing instead of benefits to these countries,

negative impacts on social impacts on communities, negative social impacts on labor, massive negative social impacts on environments, especially in the extractive oil sector and mining sector. So so so that that legacy from the 70s and 80s, including debt, right, remains the case. In Ghana, it remains the case in Nigeria. These are the biggest African economies, by the way. It remains the case in Angola. Another resource rich African country remains the case in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Another resource rich African country that remains the case. Massive debts owing to both the IMF and countries in the West. South Africa, too, may not be on the IMF's books, but is isn't debts. I mean, our our our balance of trade, you know, is negative. And we're a massive debt granted. A lot of that debt is consumer debt. But still, you know, the fact remains that South Africa shares the same sort of scourge of of of of of of of the continent's legacy, you know, and and and and and all of that rooted in the evolution of a growth doctrine that has come to shape

contemporary economics and economies in the African continent. Yeah, and this stage in the book, you know, I was about ready to just let my wrist and go, it's doom and gloom. And we're all screwed. But there is hope. There is hope. And we're going to talk about that when we come back and wrap up with my special guest, Malcolm Ray, says what's involved. It's so good to have you with us back in a bit.

And we're back with my special guest, Malcolm Ray. Malcolm, just let's let's have a look. If you don't mind, it's the more positive aspect. Can we fix it? Can it be fixed? Is the traditional way of capitalism going to be able to perpetuate? Because I just feel society is different now. People are different, you know, and people are starting to look and particularly with people that I've talked to on the show and people who've listened to the show and speaking to me. There's there's more heart involved, more consciousness involved. And people are starting to wake up and go, OK, it's not just this bottom line thing. We need to look at our environment, our surroundings, our community. So talk to me a little bit about hope. Yeah, that's the billion dollar question. And you're right. I think what's important, you know, I started out saying that in a sense, a lot of people who might not have been as conscious of the world we live in and its problems, peak of it and are very aware of it.

And I think there's almost a kind of leveling influence, right, that the past two years has brought across the board and that's across classes and demographies and countries. There's a general kind of reawakening of people in the world about the impact of the economies we live in on our environments. Climate change is a big issue about the impact of the world we live in on. And livelihoods. I mean, the one thing that came out during Covid was the whole thing about lives versus livelihoods. And I think that sort of brought this whole this kind of new awareness into frame for a lot of people. And so, yes, the question really is, so, you know, if there's a problem, can it be fixed? The definite by very definition, you know, a problem defining a problem, you know, identifying a problem implies that there is a solution, there's always a solution. The question really is, can that solution be found within the framework, right, of capitalism? And that's the big question, you know, or does the solution lie on what we know as capitalism? And let's just try to kind of in a sense, in a very simple way, understand what capitalism is. It's a bunch of producers who own private property and private industries.

It's a bunch of consumers who consume those products. And it's labor, you know, who sell their labor power to people who own industry. And then the thing that kind of distinguishes capitalism from other systems is that in the process of exchanging products, in the process of people earning wages, people who own capital basically earn profits. So the question is, you know, can we resolve the problem by simply relooking at what we call GDP, right? And I was saying earlier on that one of the or do we have to actually look at something more fundamental, like profit and how to curb that? And I mean, one of the things that should actually accost people, I think, is the fact that just during COVID,

you know, 10 of the richest were 10 of the richest 10 men in the world, and they were all men, doubled their wealth, right, in the face of growing poverty and inequality.

Some of some of those individuals moved from billionaire to trillionaire status. So in a sense, you know, the question is, can we resolve the problem by curbing that, you know, by containing it, by introducing policies that contain the propensity by a few individuals to amass massive wealth? OK, or do we have to look at the very this very thing called profit? You know, and do we have to redefine what what that means? So there's two arguments here, David. One is that we look at GDP and, you know, in a sense, we redefine it from the problem, which is that GDP has been disarticulated from its social and environmental consequences over the past 100 years. So it doesn't take account of social and environmental factors on balance sheets. OK, now, by including social and environmental factors and balance sheets, can we resolve the problem? I think we can, to some extent, decent up, right? The problem by doing that. So that's one way in which we can actually start to lessen the impact of capitalism on our societies and the world generally by decentering GDP from its traditional moorings, right, by including social and environmental factors in our measure of success. The other, you know, the other intervention that I think is absolutely necessary is is that we really need to relook.

And my book is written in this vein, it's written in a simple way as a narrative that includes a whole range of disciplines, not just economics. And I do that deliberately because I think that economics as a discipline, right, is problematic inherently. In the late 1800s, and this is something people don't know, generally, unless you're an economist in the late 1800s in the US, economics didn't exist as a discipline. It was actually a year long course in moral philosophy, right? It's only after what turned out that century in the early 1900s that economics started to become a discipline and all our problems began. So moral philosophy was very important, you know, and economics was less important. I think the problem over the years is that economics has

you know, emptied itself off the things that matter to you and I, right? Things like employment, things like the things that give us meaning, each one of us meaning. What are our passions? Can we pursue it? Can we combine our passion with earning an income? You know, these things have always been thought to be mutually exclusive, but they shouldn't. Things like the environment and so on. Economics has emptied itself of all these things into what are called the softer disciplines, you know, in the social sciences. And so the social sciences deal with those things. And economics is meant to deal with the hard issues of profits and growth. I think one of the approaches that we can adopt, not just in economics, but how we make policy, how we decide policy, is by bringing in all of the so-called softer issues into the discipline and looking at it as a holistic discipline and looking at policy making in a holistic sort of way. So that, for example, when we when we when we do monetary policy, we don't look at it in strictly technical terms. We look at the impact of interest rates and inflation on ordinary people and on the environment. At the moment, we don't do that and not just here in South Africa, but the rest of the world as a matter of course, that's not done. Right.

So I think that's the second intervention that we can make. And it's a big one because it actually requires very, very, very almost definitional shifts, but it can be done. So the second thing is a multidisciplinary approach. The first thing is a redefinition of GDP. The third thing is what you were talking about, David. I think, you know, that and I've been saying this consistently over the past few weeks and the build up to the book launches, that with this new consciousness, this new reawakening among people, I think it's important for people to to realize that in a sense, activism in a new way, not in the way that we traditionally understand it, you know, as organized politics or anything like that. But in a new way, in terms of consciousness, a consciousness of self. But activism is, in a sense, our range for living on Earth. And I think it's important for people individually and collectively to own or to take ownership of the problem. And we can do that in very simple ways. We can do that by exercising conscious choices about what we consume. You know, do we consume products? And I know it's not always easy because it's not as a products that are environmentally friendly and that have not been the result of mass exploitation and so on and not always accessible to all of us.

But we can be more discerning in what we produce and what we consume. And in doing that, we actually then challenge as consumers what producers produce, what owners of capital produce. Are they more sensitive to environments and how they produce things? Are they more sensitive to employment in what and how they produce things? Are they more sensitive to wages and wage levels and how they produce things? So that's massive potential power that each one of us actually have, you know, and that we can use that can actually become active power just by being conscious. You know, we become activists. And then on the production side, I think in redefining GDP, that could have spin off effects for how companies do business. If we redefine GDP to include social and environmental factors, it forces, it compels companies as a measure, right? It compels companies to become more environmentally conscious. It compels them to become more socially conscious and sensitive, you know. And those are massive incentives, you know, to, in a sense, do business in different ways. So, you know, David, it doesn't necessarily mean that we have to overhaul what we call capitalism. It simply means that, you know, that that certain certain things can be done from the individual right up to policy.

You know, that, you know, invites incremental change over time. You know, that in a sense, incrementally starts to result in larger definitional shifts and then ultimately behavioral shifts. And I think that's the bottom line. I think those sorts of cultural shifts are going to be very important in sustaining a new global reality beyond the current one. We can change policies, right? We can change laws. We can change systems. But if we don't change our behavior, then we've got a problem. So I think behavior, ultimately, kind of cultures that inform those behaviors are ways of life. Whether we measure success by the things we have, our material possessions, or whether we measure success by by value, you know, whether we measure it in vastly different ways to that which we've been taught to that which hasn't been actually normalized. You know, we normalize things these days by by measuring success on the yardstick of what the amount of money we have in our bank accounts, the houses we live in, the cars we drive and the labels we wear. And when you take a step back and ask yourself, are those things meaningful in the scheme of things? Then you've got to take another step back and you've got to ask yourself,

is the society we live in normal? You know, I mean, is there anything vaguely normal about the world we live in? Is it natural? There's nothing natural about it. These are human constructs like GDP, the creations of people. And the tyranny of growth, in a sense, does that. It shows that all these things, these these these these intimidating things, these numbers and these iron, so-called iron laws, actually results of a drama, you know, that involves individuals who took decisions at various points in time that ultimately shaped our lives. And characterised the systems that ultimately determined the character of the world that we live in. Absolutely. And I think, as you said, you know, it's time. It's time for us to start making better decisions. And I like the part where you brought it back to us as individuals, because too often and as South Africans, you know, it takes a lot to get us moving. And when we do traditionally, we've been able to stand up and fight for change. But we've become very lethargic and complacent over the last little while. And it's yeah. So I think this book has come at the right time. I think if you're able to get out there, get a copy, read it. It's a big book, but you're not going to find yourself bored because there's going to be plenty of aha moments in there.

And some of the arguments that Malcolm makes is really it's going to get you thinking. Malcolm, where is the book available?

So the book is available at all leading bookstores. It's at exclusive books, countrywide. And and of course, I don't have a list of the others, but it also is at C&A and other bookstores.

Yeah, it's also available electronically, although the electronic version, I think, is accessible only to people outside the country at the moment. So, yeah, you can get it at any exclusive bookstore. Wonderful stuff. Quick question before I let you go. In fact, two questions. The first question is, have you mailed copies of this book off to the press and various other people in leadership positions and said, please read this.

So, David, yeah, we we, I think that's actually what you've done is you and I know my publisher is listening. I think we should do that. We've mailed it to various people in academia and in media. I think, yes, so what we're going to do now, and thank you for this, is we're going to mail it to to the makula bosses in government and the policymakers and I think some of the ministers, I think it's important for them to have a copy of this. I think so, too, you know, let's do it, read, change your mind, it's going to be good for all of us. Malcolm, as we wrap it up and then I'll let you go. What's next for Malcolm Ray? Where are you now? What are you doing? What's your next?

So I there's another book that I'm busy. I'm busy on at the moment. I'm not going to give the title away at the moment, it's too early. That's a trade secret, but I'm working on a book. I think the concern in South Africa is it's pretty obvious to everybody. You know, it's it's it's almost as if history is being upended. And so my next book is in similar vein to the Tuttanyev growth is a narrative history. A new way. Well, it's a new perspective on what happened in 1994 and how we came to be in the situation that we are in today. So less economics on that one, less politics, actually, more people, if that makes any sense. It does. It does. I'm looking forward to it, so I'm putting my name down right now for for a copy in an interview. Just let's get that out of the way. And I think on that note, welcome. It's time for us to wrap it up with you. Thank you so much for taking the time out and having a chat with us. I wish you all the very, very best with this book. I would love for it to become an international bestseller. And it sure has the value in my mind. So thank you. Oh, thank you, David. Appreciate it. Wonderful stuff. There we go. Wraps it up with my special guest, Malcolm Ray, author of the Tuttanyev growth, why capitalism has triumphed in the West and failed in Africa.

Do yourself a favor, go out and get it. Wraps up this edition of What's Involved to each and every one of you. Take care. Look after yourselves and thank you for listening.