Even the stunningly successful battle against apartheid in South Africa suffered its most significant losses on the economic equality front. The country’s freedom fighters were not, it is worth remembering, only demanding the right to vote and move freely. They were also, as the African National Congress’s official policy platform, the Freedom Charter, made clear, struggling for key sectors of the economy—including the mines and the banks—to be nationalized, with their proceeds used to pay for the social programs that would lift millions in the townships out of poverty. Black South Africans
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