Does Classical Liberalism Have a Chance in South Africa?: New at Reason

The long-ruling African National Congress is on its way to losing power, but could go with the “Zimbabwe option.”

Marian Tupy writes:

Last week, the Cato Institute hosted a policy forum with Herman Mashaba, a self-made millionaire businessman and libertarian, who serves as the executive mayor of South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg. Reason interviewed him shortly after Mashaba’s political party, the Democratic Alliance, unseated the African National Congress in a number of South African metropolitan areas during the 2016 local elections. Since then, Mashaba has made some progress in tackling corruption and failing public service delivery in Johannesburg, but he has his work cut out for him.

Over the last 23 years, South Africa has been run by a tripartite alliance consisting of African nationalists (the African National Congress), communists (the South African Communist Party) and trade unionists (the Congress of South African Trade Unions). Since 1994, the government has done some good. Millions of houses, for example, have been built and either given or sold (at a heavy discount) to poor Africans. Drinking water and electricity were delivered to shantytowns and far-flung rural areas.

Being a relatively rich country, South Africa could afford to finance public works out of the general tax revenue. In normal countries, people buy houses (including piped water and electricity) with the money they earn in the market place. Providing jobs to the populace, alas, is something that governments in general and South African government in particular are very bad at doing.

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