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Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

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Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#41

Post by nathell »

inglor_cz wrote: post #16
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh I'm from a nation way more socialist than the USA and we have 3x the median wealth per capita (Australia). We have a much lower mean wealth though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... If you're one of the top 1% in America life is great. But the 99% should not be going around saying socialism sucks. That to me indicates you're gullibility and mindless support of the 1% who have waaaay…

I was born in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and it took decades to get rid of its awful legacy. Socialism sucks. The idea of "means of production owned collectively" tends to suck even in capitalism (too many shareholders), but if the owner is the state, it sucks massively. Any alignment of interests goes out of the window, massive white elephant projects get built in the name of ideology, "superfluous concerns…

I was born in the People’s Republic of Poland, and I think most of the suckage you’ve described are due to oppressive authoritarianism of the former Eastern Bloc countries, and have little if anything to do with collective ownership of means of production.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#42

Post by OfSanguineFire »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #29
inglor_cz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When people vote for politicians based on moral appeals" Is this really SA's problem, or rather classical tribalism? "A bastard, but our bastard." (See also: Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq etc. Not just an African phenomenon.)

Tribalism is often encouraged by invaders and colonizers. Divide and Conquer is a classic tactic. See Tutsi Vs Hutu for one notable example in Africa. And this was a known strategy in apartheid South Africa.

Is this really blamed on Apartheid? Whenever I have talked with South African Blacks about the various tribal affiliations of the country, they claim that each community did not much like each other (and everyone hated the Zulus) since long before white people arrived. Indeed, it was white oppression that gave an impetus to pan-Africanism where, for a time in the ANC, people might have united across tribal affiliations.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#43

Post by alephnerd »

prmph wrote: post #23

Meh, SA has supposedly been on the "brink of chaos" ever since Apartheid ended, and yet it never happens. I'm getting tired of this narrative. I've visited once. Yes, many things seem to have gone south, but those are growing pains every country goes through to achieve a proper political and economic system. Of course it is easy to avoid "chaos" when the majority of the people are brutally suppressed. Actually crafti…

Idk.

Using HDI [0] you can see that ZA was middle of the pack developmentally in the 90s, but platueaed until 2007, when the commodity boom and BRICS fervor saw ZA's development skyrocket. Yet by 2013 onwards, that development began to plateau again.

Furthermore, ZA is a country that is traditionally compared to other rising economies like China, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, etc. In the 2000s, ZA was far ahead of China developmentally and comparable to Mexico and Brazil, yet all 3 countries have overtaken ZA.

Heck, in 1990 Malaysia, Thailand, and South Africa were all comparable developmentally yet Malaysia and Thailand in 2023 have hit the precipice of becoming a developed country (HDI at 0.8 and above) while South Africa is still stuck.

Even Vietnam, a country that in 1990 was one of the poorest countries in the world has now in 2023 caught up to South Africa developmentally.

This absolutely constitutes a collapse. Mind you it's not as bad as Venezuela's (China in 2023 has only just hit developmental indicators that Venezuela had in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet Venezuela had regressed to the same level as China in the early 2000s), but it is absolutely a massive regression.

[0] - https://countryeconomy.com/hdi/south-africa

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#44

Post by akira2501 »

GolfPopper wrote: post #17
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh I'm from a nation way more socialist than the USA and we have 3x the median wealth per capita (Australia). We have a much lower mean wealth though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... If you're one of the top 1% in America life is great. But the 99% should not be going around saying socialism sucks. That to me indicates you're gullibility and mindless support of the 1% who have waaaay…

Not an actual quote, but rather a later-paraphrased summary of John Steinbeck, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

I see socialism like unions. Instead of addressing the underlying problem they seek to build a permanent detente with it. To that extent, people are much better off seeing themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" otherwise they risk becoming the "permanently politically exploited underclass."

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#45

Post by pmontra »

inglor_cz wrote: post #16
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh I'm from a nation way more socialist than the USA and we have 3x the median wealth per capita (Australia). We have a much lower mean wealth though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... If you're one of the top 1% in America life is great. But the 99% should not be going around saying socialism sucks. That to me indicates you're gullibility and mindless support of the 1% who have waaaay…

I was born in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and it took decades to get rid of its awful legacy. Socialism sucks. The idea of "means of production owned collectively" tends to suck even in capitalism (too many shareholders), but if the owner is the state, it sucks massively. Any alignment of interests goes out of the window, massive white elephant projects get built in the name of ideology, "superfluous concerns…

Socialism in Western Europe stopped to be about collective ownership of means of production very long before the fall of the wall. That was maybe the goal of sub 5% far left communist parties, not even mainstream ones.

Nepotism, corruption and waste of resources are well established even in non left wing countries.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#46

Post by AlbertCory »

kriops wrote: post #21
oatmeal1 wrote: post #5

When people vote for politicians based on moral appeals instead of practical qualifications, corruption is much more likely; politicians don't have to do a good job, they just have to appear to be on the "good" side.

[flagged]

That is 100% wrong. Even in the very capital of corruption (in the US, anyway), Chicago, the slogan was "good government is good politics."

In other words, doing a good job with the boring stuff is also good for getting elected.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#47

Post by jimbob45 »

factsaresacred wrote: post #30

"There Are No Successful Black Nations" was the original title of this article in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/09/why-black-people-must-h... It's an uncomfortable title, but it's a truth that must be confronted. How have once downtrodden countries like Korea, China, and large swaths of Eastern Europe been able to turn rags into riches while most of Africa has so far failed to? GDP is not everythi…

Are we not counting Haiti or Jamaica? If we’re counting “black” as “African”, then yeah. But then “There are no successful African countries” seems a lot less difficult to prove/refute.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#48

Post by rejectfinite »

factsaresacred wrote: post #30

"There Are No Successful Black Nations" was the original title of this article in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/09/why-black-people-must-h... It's an uncomfortable title, but it's a truth that must be confronted. How have once downtrodden countries like Korea, China, and large swaths of Eastern Europe been able to turn rags into riches while most of Africa has so far failed to? GDP is not everythi…

>but it's a truth that must be confronted

Why? I really do not care anymore. How much have been poured in? How many marshall plans in $? While Germany rose from a bombed out nation in 1945 to the EU's strongest economy?

South Korea too is even more impressive, from an illiterate peasant nation to now with Samsung and all that.

Japan got hit with the most destructive man made weapon, twice. Granted, they were an Asian powerhouse up to WW2.

I think the key is education and "making your own shit". Have any African nations made weapons, planes, tanks, communications equipment, trains, cars, and now computers and phones in the same ilk?

Being Swedish, we are 10milion only and have made planes, submarines, ericsson + vast mining and forest operations with assorted companies. :)

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#49

Post by rejectfinite »

jimbob45 wrote: post #47
factsaresacred wrote: post #30

"There Are No Successful Black Nations" was the original title of this article in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/09/why-black-people-must-h... It's an uncomfortable title, but it's a truth that must be confronted. How have once downtrodden countries like Korea, China, and large swaths of Eastern Europe been able to turn rags into riches while most of Africa has so far failed to? GDP is not everythi…

Are we not counting Haiti or Jamaica? If we’re counting “black” as “African”, then yeah. But then “There are no successful African countries” seems a lot less difficult to prove/refute.

Successful compared to South Korea and China? Even eastern europe? And you say “Jamaica”? Do you not see the absurdity?

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#50

Post by sneed_chucker »

mantas wrote: post #27
inglor_cz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When people vote for politicians based on moral appeals" Is this really SA's problem, or rather classical tribalism? "A bastard, but our bastard." (See also: Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq etc. Not just an African phenomenon.)

See also many cases in West when politicians are voted in based on gender. E.g. here in Lithuania we had a presidential candidate who is a women. I heard too many people advocating for her based on her gender. I heard some people going as far as saying that all women shall vote for her. Should all men vote for another candidate who happened to be man? Never got an answer :/

"Identity politics for me but not for thee"
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