We have drifted from a market economy to a market society and one of its most corrosive effects is un-commonality, argues Harvard academic, Michael Sandel. Those who are affluent and those who have modest means lead separate lives. This isn't good for democracy. Democracy doesn’t require perfect equality, but what it does require is that citizens share in a common life. What matters is that people of different social backgrounds encounter one another in the ordinary course of life...
Frank Meintjies - Many of the deep-seated social and developmental problems facing South Africa today link back to the transition processes of the early1990s. The issue is not that we should not have had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) or Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). Rather, the problem is that we saw these processes – adopted as political necessity – as “end points” rather than the beginnings of far reaching changes. And the concern is that we are...