FMF Solutions | Free Market Foundation

FMF SOLUTIONS

Through our media advocacy, academic research, and domestic and international cooperation with likeminded institutions, the Free Market Foundation is putting in the effort to ensure these easy solutions to some of our most pressing problems are popularised and understood by those with influence – both inside and outside policy circles.

South Africa is experiencing many, simultaneously-unfolding crises that have created a climate of despondency about our future. The Free Market Foundation believes that each of these challenges is easily solvable and that – if we are willing to put in the work – there is no need for undue defeatism.

There are two categories of solutions: individual, commercial, and community solutions, and policy solutions.

INDIVIDUAL, COMMERCIAL, AND COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS

What you can do right now

STATEPROOF

Take proactive steps to hedge yourself, your family, your business, and your community against criminal and political harm.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Realise (and materialise) that you, your family, and your community – not the state – are primarily responsible for solving problems and creating opportunities.

EMBRACE CAPITALISM

Understand and embrace that the pursuit of self-interest, far from being something shameful, is the greatest driver of the collective prosperity of humankind.

If a great enough number of individuals, entrepreneurs, and communities implement these sometimes difficult, usually simple solutions in the spheres of life over which they exercise control, the following policy solutions will be significantly more achievable.

POLICY SOLUTIONS

What we need to make happen together

OWNERSHIP

Private ownership empowers individuals and communities to make decisions and invest in their property, fostering wealth accumulation and efficiency.

PRIVATISATION

State-owned assets should be transferred to the private sector, as market forces and market discipline are the best incentives for affordable and quality service delivery.

DEREGULATION

Excessive bureaucracy and state interference in private economic affairs undermines growth and dynamism, and should be undone.

RULE OF LAW

The content, making, and enforcement of law should be constitutional, knowable, accessible, unambiguous, certain, reasonable, and proportional.

REDUCED SPENDING

The burden that government represents to taxpayers should be minimal and consummate to government revenue.

REDUCED TAXES

The economic reality experienced by productive taxpayers should be a primary consideration when determining tax rates. The tax system should be simple, non-distortive, and respectful.

POLITICAL DECENTRALISATION

There should be a significant degree of deference to more local spheres of authority with unique needs and circumstances.

Despite these being policy solutions, the Free Market Foundation still regards ordinary individuals, entrepreneurs, and communities as the primary actors to effect these changes. The state always operates downstream from the climate of public opinion, and a greater insistence on these solutions by a stateproof, responsible, and profit-seeking civil society will make them a reality.