South Africans are worse off than they were before the end of apartheid, at least as measured by real incomes. In Incomes in South Africa Since the Fall of Apartheid (NBER Working Paper No. 11384), co-authors Murray Leibbrandt, James Levinsohn, and Justin McCrary document that decline and attempt to explain what has happened.
They show that average incomes of South African men and women fell by about 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, and note that there has been little improvement since then....
The change in income is most pronounced in the lower half of the income distribution and has disproportionately affected younger workers, women, and blacks. For men in the bottom 5 percent of the income distribution, total real income in 2000 was about half the level of 1995. In the tenth through the seventy-fifth percentile, incomes were about one third lower than in 1995. For those in the top 10 percent, incomes declined by about one-seventh. For women, the results are very similar, although above the ninetieth percentile, women fare slightly better than men, with roughly constant real incomes.
In 1995, white South African men were paid 98 percent more than black men. By 2000, this discrepancy had grown to 118 percent -- a difference of 20 percentage points. Black and white women saw the analogous gap grow by 40 percentage points.
http://www.nber.org/digest/jan06/w11384.html
Those are rather amazing figures.
Second, the author (John Saul) specifically noted that ending apartheid was an epochal victory, despite the shortcomings of the post-apartheid era.
The piece doesn't deserve any snark at all, & it seems strange to get such a disproportionate reaction.
"To on top of that nationalize industries and wrest companies and land from people and attempt to redistribute it all at the same time would have been disruptive"
Incomes HAVE been redistributed: UPWARD, such that most black people are worse off than before the revolution. It's only "disruptive" when the rich lose, not when the masses do, I guess.
That is a strange fact that demands examination, which is why I posted the article.
And now, of course, what are the "sensible people" in power blaming these things on? Oh, yes, the "corruption" of the majority-black leadership. Win-win.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21564846-south-africa-sliding-downhill-while-much-rest-continent-clawing-its-way-up
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