How is the new South Africa faring in terms of economic and political freedom?
The giant achievement, of course, is the liberation of black South Africa from apartheid, discrimination and humiliation. So this victory must not be trivialized. Unfortunately, in many liberation struggles, those who take over the ‘liberated’ country often perpetuate far too much of what they have inherited. They keep the very institutions that caused oppression and discrimination in the first place. They should, instead, attempt to change the entire legislative system to one based on objective rules and minimal legislation. In South Africa, sadly, we do not see this. At the same time, the absence of apartheid has created new opportunities and black South Africans have used these. In the informal, shadowy, underground economy, there has been an explosion of enterprise. Fortunately, they just ignore the government. In South Africa, ordinary people just pretend that the government is not there. They run their businesses, taxi services and so on without licenses and trade wherever they w
