Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 49, 2018

Philosophy of Economics

Unemployment and the Gift in the South African Context

Unemployment is a serious problem in South Africa that can be exasperated by the dialectical tension between neo-liberal and neo-Marxist perspectives that are being used to address this problem. This dialectical tension is reflected in language that can be informed by reductionist aspects of the ontologies of these perspectives. The purpose of this study is to inquire whether the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida can provide an alternative linguistic perspective for the dialectical tension between neo-liberal and neo-Marxist perspectives. The implication of deconstruction for the language of economic theory is illustrated by Jacques Derrida’s use of the word “gift”. “The gift” is ambivalent because it contains a tension between self-interest and justice, which Derrida refers to as “hospitable narcissism”. It will be argued that this ambivalence is present in the language of the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes, which may provide important sustainable economic perspectives for dealing with unemployment. In this regard, deconstruction is helpful to develop sensitivity to the language used and the ontologies that inform the language used when addressing unemployment in South Africa.