What diagnosis? Which remedy? Critical reflections on the diagnostic overview of South Africa’s national planning commission

Abstract

This contribution offers some critical reflections on the Diagnostic Overview produced by the South African National Planning Commission. The argument is structured in the form of catena and commentary with main sections devoted to the assumption of the need for economic growth, factors inhibiting economic growth, the category of unemployability, and the impact of inequalities. It is suggested that Christian discourse on sin, understood as a form of social diagnostics, can contri-bute to an in-depth diagnosis by uncovering the root causes of the problem from an ultimate perspective.