Tag: Free Market Foundation

The current Businesses Act 1991 requires a business licence to carry on essentially only two categories of business. The Act repealed prior licensing laws that had required many more types of business to be licensed. At the time, the Free Market Foundation through its Law Review Project helped persuade the government to repeal those prior licensing laws and introduce the light-touch 1991 Act.

If you are a vaper in South Africa, you need to understand what is about to happen. Within months, the government’s new Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill will pass through Parliament. When it does, vaping in this country will be finished.

We have called upon Parliament to repeal the Expropriation Act of 2024. We also urge lawmakers to introduce a just and equitable land reform programme that adheres to both the text and the spirit of the Constitution. This is an essential step toward pursuing real land reform.

In a video clip that has gone viral on social media, a South African TikToker by the name of "Voice of RSA" (the Voice hereafter) aims at what he calls the dominance of "trickle-down economics". The TikToker argues that economic growth during the presidencies of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki was essentially jobless

When Jean-Baptiste Say published his Treatise on Political Economy in 1803, he was not trying to be provocative. He was trying to be clear. In doing so, he ended up stating something both obvious and easy to forget: real economic activity begins with production, not consumption.

South Africa needs urgently to reflect on a landmark legislative initiative that is unfolding in the United States of America. Designed to curtail the expansive authority of federal agencies which can issue economically significant regulations without congressional approval, this effort marks a pivotal attempt by American lawmakers to reclaim their constitutionally enshrined role as the nation’s primary lawmakers.

Some months ago, I exchanged views with Buddy Wells, one of South Africa’s more vocal supporters of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). In our debate, he argued a familiar point. According to him, governments can print money to employ the jobless without causing inflation, as long as those being hired are not already doing anything useful.

The charts below, and others like them, are frequently used online and in presentations by economist and author Stephanie Kelton. She uses them to support the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) claim that, contrary to conventional wisdom, government deficits are not harmful. Instead, she argues they represent a gain to the economy.

The European Union (EU) is often overlooked in global power analyses that favour hard power, which finds expression in areas such as military strength, intelligence capabilities, or ideological exports.

We have announced 16 May 2025 as this year’s Tax Freedom Day: the moment when hardworking South Africans finally stop toiling to pay their taxes, and start earning for themselves. We have marked this day since 1997 to shine a light on the tax burden shouldered by ordinary taxpayers. Tax Freedom Day on 16 May means that the average South African has laboured 136 days – over a third of the year – to fund government spending.