Price Stability Without Prosperity: Why Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy Miss South Africa’s Growth Problem and How Metanomics Reframes It

Author(s):

 Yegandi Imhotep Paul Alagidede¹

Imhotep.alagidede@wits.ac.za
2025-12-03 13:37:54

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Abstract

South Africa’s inflation targeting has kept prices within 3–6% since 2000, yet growth has stalled, unemployment remains high, and investment is weak. Orthodoxy assumes low inflation catalyses expansion while underweighting structural bottlenecks, treating the exchange rate as exogenous, and rationing risk-sharing capital securing prices without prosperity. Heterodoxy credit quotas, directed lending, fiscal dominance, and protectionism mobilises liquidity but rarely disciplines it to verifiable output, eroding credibility and inviting mismatch. We advance Metanomics as a middle path: Resource-Based Monetary Sovereignty (RBMS) is theorized and enacted through an Endogenous Resource-Backed Currency (ERBC). Money is a living contract linking people, land, and production. Policy pivots from aggregates to measured real-sector flows via: (i) registry → tokenisation → compliance → flow-orchestration of assets (energy, minerals, crops); (ii) programmable liquidity settling against metered kilowatt-hours, delivered tonnage, and certified invoices; (iii) rules targeting employment, investment, and export diversification; and (iv) FX buffers drawn from resource backed notes and AfCFTA settlement corridors. G-Wallet is the forceful path to executing a digital public finance rail tying disbursement to milestones with transparent, identity-anchored audit trails that hard-wire RBMS–ERBC discipline. When registries, enforcement, and measurement align, failure loopholes narrow: liquidity binds to productivity, time-to-cash falls, capacity utilisation rises, and jobs expand-delivering stability with prosperity

Keywords
Metanomics; Resource-Based Monetary Sovereignty (RBMS); Endogenous Resource-Backed Currency (ERBC);Digital Public Finance (G-Wallet); Inflation Targeting; Structural Transformation; South Africa

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