End of Apartheid in South Africa? Not in Economic Terms
- 7 years ago
End of Apartheid in South Africa? Not in Economic Terms
“We basically compounded the problems of apartheid by buying up all this cheap land as far out of the city as possible,” said Alan Hirsch, a senior official in the Trade
and Industry Department during the Mandela government, and now director of the Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice at the University of Cape Town.
“The A. N.C.’s primary objective was inclusion into the existing system,” said Moeletsi Mbeki, deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs
and a brother of the former South African president Thabo Mbeki.
“The system,” he said, “doesn’t work.”
The system does work, as it happens, though often for the benefit of the people running it.
Ten percent of all South Africans — the majority white — owns more than 90 percent of national wealth,
according to a 2016 research paper by Anna Orthofer, a graduate student at Stellenbosch University.
“We never dismantled apartheid,” said Ayabonga Cawe, a former economist for Oxfam, the international anti-poverty organization,
and now the host of a radio show that explores national affairs.
“It’s a very deep structural problem,” said Ian Goldin, who served as a senior economic adviser to Nelson Mandela when he was president of South Africa,
and is now a professor of globalization at the University of Oxford in Britain.
“I like seeing people who are better than me,” he said.
“We basically compounded the problems of apartheid by buying up all this cheap land as far out of the city as possible,” said Alan Hirsch, a senior official in the Trade
and Industry Department during the Mandela government, and now director of the Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice at the University of Cape Town.
“The A. N.C.’s primary objective was inclusion into the existing system,” said Moeletsi Mbeki, deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs
and a brother of the former South African president Thabo Mbeki.
“The system,” he said, “doesn’t work.”
The system does work, as it happens, though often for the benefit of the people running it.
Ten percent of all South Africans — the majority white — owns more than 90 percent of national wealth,
according to a 2016 research paper by Anna Orthofer, a graduate student at Stellenbosch University.
“We never dismantled apartheid,” said Ayabonga Cawe, a former economist for Oxfam, the international anti-poverty organization,
and now the host of a radio show that explores national affairs.
“It’s a very deep structural problem,” said Ian Goldin, who served as a senior economic adviser to Nelson Mandela when he was president of South Africa,
and is now a professor of globalization at the University of Oxford in Britain.
“I like seeing people who are better than me,” he said.