Race and Evolution

by Stephen Sanderson

The end of apartheid was celebrated in the West but in fact there was little to celebrate. Nelson Mandela became the new South Africa’s first president but he was an ineffective and largely disengaged leader. Retiring as president in 1999, he was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki, an increasingly corrupt and ruthless dictator who tolerated no opposition, even going so far as enlisting prison inmates to murder political opponents. Under Mbeki, things went swiftly downhill.499 One of the first things the post-apartheid government did was to establish affirmative action programs in which overwhelming preference was given to blacks; whites quickly became aware that entire categories of jobs, especially in the public sector, were off limits to them. Most whites and other minorities did not even bother to apply for these jobs. But most blacks had extremely poor work skills and were so unproductive that, without racial preferences, they would have been virtually unemployable. Affirmative action had a very negative impact on the quality of public services, including nearly complete failure of delivery in 2006-07. There was massive corruption among police, many of whom were illiterate. Government had become almost totally ineffective.500 The economy declined dramatically. Jobs in the formal sector shrank by more than 100,000 a year for many years. As whites began to emigrate in large numbers, they took their capital and skills with them. Domestic and foreign investment collapsed and unemplo...

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