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Let me start by stating the obvious. The role of the social scientist especially in
times of national (or global) crisis is to be sceptical of new words or terms as they
emerge in public discourse. For example, it took South Africans some time to
realise that phrases such as ‘white monopoly capital’ or ‘radical economic trans-
formation’ were in fact propagated by a British public relations firm Bell Pottinger
as part of an elaborate ruse to deflect from state capture and corruption under
then President Jacob Zuma
