You may be forgiven for thinking that the crucial fork in the road lies behind us. The ascent of Jacob Zuma to the purple in 2009 may come to be seen as having been such a moment, on a journey starting much further back in time. Or the creation of the EFF, or its 2015 parliamentary spectacles. Or the spectacular flaming out of Anglo American announced two weeks ago. Or the collective rush abroad of so many SA corporates these last five years.
Yet the REAL fork in the road may lie ahead, when either SA turns up along with the rest of the world, or it keeps to its own course, steadily descending, parting ways that may trigger a truly catastrophic event: the departure of the bulk of the educated skilled middle class, the sinews of our functional market economy. Our rainmakers.
Such partings have occurred before in history, in other countries, on nearly all continents. Few are the economies that successfully overcome such trauma, too easily succumbing to a departure of modernity.
Why take this view? Is another outcome not possible? Indeed there is, for which reason depicting this as a fork in the road, one at which a critical number of key people will decide to stay or leave. Zim experienced it. Algeria did. Syria too. So around the world, at different times under different regimes.
What set of conditions will shape our fork?
The reasoning starts with a few assumptions about the present. Out of a total population of 54 million today, some 23 million are in the labour force, 11 million are formally employed (implying certain skill sets, experience, capital invested, output & income expected, and contributing some 90% of measured GDP output & income).
Only a tiny fraction, a few ten thousand, possible a few hundred thousand, of this formal employment represent the senior, experienced core of the labour force, some of it deployed in the public sector, most residing in the private sector.
These are the critically important individuals inside organisations & professions, the rainmakers so the speak, earning the most, having the most wealth, and by far contributing the most tax.
Many in this strategically important group of people are happy to be in this country, mostly of their birth, still surrounded by some of their offspring and closest friends, although it is remarkable how many of those today reside overseas.
Their allegiance is still assured by their wealth & income, their relaxed lifestyles, their families & friends, the wonderful climate and love of country. No where else offers better. And so they are here.
But that isn’t the entire story.
It turns out that many have carefully weighed the going-ons in this country and have concluded that a shadow has passed in front of the sun. Their position is no longer free of danger and risk, of many kinds.
Their relevance is being marginalised daily, their income & wealth is at issue, the future of their offspring is in doubt, the quality of their lifestyles under threat.
Indeed, many might by now already have relocated, if it wasn't for the fact that the larger world experienced a few discontinuities this past decade, undermining economic conditions in many parts of the world. The Anglo-Saxon banking crisis, the serial European crises, the Chinese repositioning, the global commodity & many EM adjustments. These happenings shielded SA in a manner of speaking, indeed set in motion a substantial homecoming of people finding themselves stranded in too many overseas crisis situations.
This could be formulated more gently but the bottom line is still stark. Instead of many more leaving this past half decade on account of progressive unravelling at home, the very opposite happened as overseas unravellings suggested reduced foreign opportunities and many choosing to come home instead.
But this is not a stable situation, the world is moving on, and these conditions will change once again.
Within the next three to seven years, the world economy should be coming out of the  hibernation that marked most of this decade. The post-crisis recuperation marking many countries this past decade will have matured to the point of having returned to “normal”. With it will come faster growth, more employment opportunities and wealth creation worldwide (although I put question marks behind Japan & Europe’s revival, but then the global centre of gravity has shifted and likely will keep shifting dynamically as new configurations drive global prosperity).
South Africa’s elite rainmakers will be well-positioned, if past generations tell us anything, to participate in such global revival.
The choice will be largely up to them whether they will want to do so from a SA base, or whether they would prefer to relocate internationally, especially if under 50, with 20-40 productive years still ahead, and children to launch on an increasingly competitive, unforgiving world.
If the 2020s decade offers improving global prospects to these critically important 100 000 plus South African family units, the question may well increasingly turn on why staying if they could go elsewhere?
Love of country, immediate family and age may automatically rule for staying, as would foreclosing opportunities globally turning on age or health.
But even when discounted for these, the next five years will increasingly become a test of wills, inside families and inside oneself. To go or to stay?
If SA were to turn up along with the world, the outcome of such self-searching could dramatically come down in favour of staying. For SA turning up would mean that a few critically important things had started to happen.
Not only more global growth, higher commodity prices and easier capital access out of the rest of the world, also easing our own ride, but far more centrally the key questions of own political leadership, policy paradigms, implementation & achievement making possible a breakout from historic structural shortcomings ensuring future sustainability of modernity for ALL our people.
The choice looming before us these next five years is one of starting to turn us into a Singapore, South Korea or Scandinavia these next 100 years, or to travel the road of a Cuba, Venezuela or Argentina these past 100 years. It is as stark as that.
The outside world can do only so much for us. The heavy lifting has to come from within. We will have to create our own luck, in the process holding on to our most important rainmakers of all origins. Or lose them to a recovering greater humanity outside our borders that will be leaving SA behind if making the wrong kind of choices.
There is a third possibility, a mixture of the two, and the true path of the past 150 years shaping our modernity. That’s De Kiewiet’s observation of SA progressing through political disaster & economic windfalls.
For even if mediocrity were to continue shaping our domestic journey, a frisky global revival coupled with another major resource windfall favouring us would probably grease our collective path enough to keep the wheels going, the locals happy, the rainmakers on balance signing on for another tour. The story of too many past generations, too.
Global revival isn't at issue (it will come). And going by all signs & omens, our well-established mediocrity isn't at issue either (it will remain a reality?). So instead of having the tough decision of choosing between meritocracy & mediocrity deciding the issue for our rainmakers whether to stay or go, is it all really hinging on another windfall in our collective future or its absence?
This is perhaps an uncomfortable truth, as much for our political elites and the rainmakers in our midst, as the remainder of the population. Yet it would be true to character shaped over many generations. This remains our true story to date.
Trying to break free from this dependency is our real challenge, but so far no cigar? What's more, there is another resource windfall already identified in the wings (shale gas, fracking, displacing oil imports and coal-fired electricity requiring huge private & infrastructure investment outlays, assuring the biggest boom in decades). All we really need to do is ensure bringing it on stream.
Will we ever grow up?

Cees Bruggemans
Bruggemans & Associates, Consulting Economists

Website www.bruggemans.co.za
Email  economics@bruggemans.co.za
Twitter  @ceesbruggemans
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Short Profile Dr CW Bruggemans
Chairman, Bruggemans & Associates Consulting Economists
Consulting Economist, Avior Capital Markets
Consulting Economist, Ince (Pty) Ltd
Consulting Economist, Hellmann Logistics (Pty) Ltd
Consulting Economist, Bureau for Economic Research (BER), Stellenbosch
Honorary Professor of Economics, University of Stellenbosch