Mark Ames, the
anti-libertarian conspiracy
theorist with a history of generating apology
notes and
speedy take-downs among those journalistic outlets still
reckless
enough to publish him, ran a
piece in Pando Daily yesterday alleging, among a
variety of dot-connecting claims involving other
libertarian-leaning people and institutions, that “Throughout its
first two decades, in the 1970s and 1980s, Reason supported
apartheid South Africa, and attacked anti-apartheid protesters and
sanctions right up to Nelson Mandela’s release, when they finally
dropped it.” The allegation, not surprisingly, is false.
How thin is Ames’s case? Among his handful of supposedly damning
citations, mined from a searchable archive that has
dozens of other pieces about South Africa, is this glowing
December 1980 profile of Leon Luow, who was an
anti-apartheid activist. Here’s the opening of that
article, which Ames quotes as a gotcha:
It is possible that in the past decade no country has moved
further toward a libertarian society than South Africa has.
Yes—South Africa.
Provocative? Definitely. True? While I seriously doubt it, I
have no earthly idea. You can quickly move long distances from
miserable starting points; the government had recently
issued a series of economic and racial decontrols (about which see
more below), and author Patrick Cox did issue the qualifer “it is
possible.” More germane to the argument, was this evidence of
pro-apartheid sentiment? It was the opposite, actually. Here’s a
longer excerpt from Cox’s piece:
Many South Africans are aware
of Louw only as a crusader for civil and economic liberties for
blacks, who make up 70 percent of South Africa’s population.
Conditions for blacks have been improving dramatically but “not
fast enough,” says Louw. “I’m an abolitionist. What’s wrong
is wrong. Freedom is the first principle. You cannot
justify restrictions by saying there will be uncomfortable effects
during the process of change.”
Black economist Walter Williams, who has visited South Africa
extensively, says of Louw and the South African move toward a
nonstatist society, “If you had to pick somebody on the continent
that played a significant role, surely it would be Leon and the
Free Market Foundation.” The Foundation, says Williams, “is forcing
people to view the problems of apartheid.”
[…]
The most powerful labor union leader in South Africa has started
working with Louw and the Foundation and has come out against
racially segregated unions and closed shop laws (a barrier to black
employment). […]
Louw says his biggest enemies are not Marxists, who are
relatively easy to deal with once the issue of coercion is put on
the table. The real enemies are those who say, “I am a capitalist,
and in a capitalist society, you have to control morals. These are
the most poisonous enemies,” says Louw, because they say
they’re for free enterprise or freedom or libertarianism, but
they’re not.
Emphases mine. Read that final paragraph again, slowly, then
look at this ludicrous Ames claim:
Majority rule and socialism were one and the same; for Reason,
apartheid was the only thing safeguarding “liberty.” The logic was
insane; but it was accepted as a matter of faith in the pages of
Reason.
If defending apartheid was a
“matter of faith” in Reason during the ’70s and ’80s, you
would expect editors and staffers and contributors to routinely
make that case when the subject of apartheid came up. Instead, from
the editor in chief to the writer of Brickbats to book reviewers to
the anti-apartheid activists themselves, the South African policy
of forcible racial discrimination was described as “bigoted,”
“repressive,” “thoroughly racist,” an “absurd anachronism,” “an
anathema,” “bad for business,” and worse. Essayists wrote treatises
on “how to dismantle apartheid”; feature writers celebrated
developments they hoped “ultimately destroys…apartheid,” Editor
Robert Poole asked Zulu leader Gatsha Buthelezi questions like
“What’s the best thing the United States government could do to
help end apartheid?”, and on and on.
Fuller excerpts and links are provided after the jump. I invite
readers of all persuasions to mine the archive and assess for
themselves.
The meat of Ames’s case comes from three pieces by a single
author, the South African Marc Swanepoel, in
1973,
1976, and
1977 (Swanepoel also wrote a relevant article in 1975).
That two decades of an institution’s journalism–let alone the
content and motivation behind a
political conference in 2014, which is the proximate target of
Ames’s fire–can be characterized, let alone discredited, by the
work of a single foreign correspondent speaks volumes about the
thin evidentiary reed we’re on here. Still, there is plenty in
those four pieces that stings our modern eyes.
For instance, this bit near the close of Swanepoel’s 1973
essay:
Throughout this article I have remained uncritical of the
apartheid situation and this may leave me open to some severe
criticism from other libertarians. I consider myself to be in the
position of someone who has to choose between a more severe or a
less severe dictatorship. The dictatorship in this instance is
unlimited majority rule. The less severe dictator is a group of 4
million mostly educated people. The more severe dictator is a group
of 16 million, mostly ignorant people. The fact that the average
person of the one group is distinguishable the average person of
the other group is an accident of nature. The object of criticism
should be the dictatorship, and not the colour of the dictator.
Abolish the source of all the evil: omnipotent government, whether
in black or in white hands!
I (and I think history) disagree with Swanepoel’s “less severe
dictator” prediction, and I wince at the description of “mostly
ignorant people.” But let’s remember the central Ames accusation
here–that “Reason supported apartheid South Africa,” and that the
apartheid=safeguarding liberty formulation “was accepted
as a matter of faith.” The lone relevant witness Ames calls to this
prosecution considered the apartheid regime a “dictatorship,” and
called for the abolition of “omnipotent government, whether in
black or in white hands.” With “supporters” like these, no wonder
the system was dead within two decades. And note, too, that
Swanepoel (quite unlike Ames) knew enough about his audience to
anticipate “severe criticism from other libertarians,” which he
indeed received in the form of dissenting letters to the
editor.
More on South Africa from the Reason archive after the
jump.
Here are links to and excerpts from 20 Reason pieces
about South Africa from the 1970s and ’80s. If there’s a
throughline in them, it’s that apartheid was repressive and morally
unjustifiable, that economic sanctions against the country were
counter-productive, that the best policies going forward were broad
decentralization and economic liberalization, that the situation
was more complicated on the ground than portrayed in the American
media, that Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners should be
freed, that conditions in neighboring countries were frequently
worse (and always less-publicized), and that blacks deserved full
equality under the law. No fair reading of these articles can lead
to the conclusion that Reason institutionally supported
apartheid.
1) The first long Reason article about apartheid was
published in August 1971, by a South African-born U.S. resident
named Terence Honikman. It was titled “Boycott
South Africa?“; it denounced the “absurdity” and “bigoted
arguments for” apartheid, and it ended like this:
Boycotts set people against each other. Free trade and
communication bring people together for mutual benefit. Since
there is no one to benefit mutually with the South African
government in the maintenance of apartheid, contacts with that body
for trading will accomplish what boycotts never have–the
demonstration of apartheid’s futility and stupidity.
(Interestingly, Honikman later
repudiated this paragraph as being too emotional in a follow-up
letter to the editor, which suggests that the magazine’s underlying
“matter of faith” regarding apartheid was rather negative.)
2) Brickbats, a collection of items usually involving
governments behaving badly, has been a beloved Reason
staple from way back. In the
April 1978 issue, Brickbatter Bill Birmingham included this
dart:
In an interview with New York Times correspondent John
Burns South African Minister of Justice James T. “Jimmy” Kruger
claimed: “I’m very, very sinerely for press freedom, and so is my
Prime Minister. We are adherents of press freedom in its full
sense.” This appeared October 23, 1977, four days after Pretoria
shut down The World, South Africa’s largest black
newspaper. “From outside South Africa such formulations read
suspiciously like Orwellian doublespeak. Yet to those familiar with
this confused and troubled land, there is little doubt that the
Afrikaaners of the Nationalist Party who hold a monopoly of
political power believe what they say. The problem is that their
concept of freedom, whether in press matters or anything else, is
subordinate to their reverence for the State.” Their
concept of freedom is subordinate to their reverence for the
State. Exactly!
3) That same issue of the magazine also had a four-paragraph
item titled “Apartheid:
Bad for Business,” that ended thusly:
Gradually, the inexorable force of (dare we say it?)
self-interest is chipping away at the absurd anachronism of
apartheid.
4) Economist Walter Williams in
August 1978 was definitely not enthusiastic about the
“white racist unions in South Africa”:
The notion that it is sometimes necessary for some individuals
to lower their price in order for some kinds of transactions to
occur is offensive to the sensibilities of many people. These
people support the minimum wage law as a matter of moral
conviction, out of concern for equity in thedistribution of wealth.
These people should know, however, that white racist unions in
South Africa have also been supporters of minimum wage laws and
equal-pay-for-equal-work laws for blacks. In South Africa, black
skilled workers in the building trades have been willing to accept
wages less than 25 percent of those wages paid to white skilled
workers. Such a differential made racial discrimination in hiring a
costly proposition. That is, firms who chose to hire whites instead
of blacks paid dearly-$1.91 per hour versus 39 cents per hour.
White racist unionists well recognize that equal-pay-for-equal-work
laws would lower the cost of racial discrimination and thus improve
their competitive position in the labor market.
5) An
August 1979 item, co-written by Editor Robert Poole, lauds a
series of recent, mostly little-known reforms in South Africa, some
of which surely informed the December 1980 enthusiasm about the
country moving in a more libertarian direction. Among the positive
developments that Poole cited:
Two recent commissions have made strong recommendations for
repeal of racially restrictive laws. The 14-member Wiehahn
Commission urged that laws reserving certain job categories for
whites be abolished, that laws requiring workplace segregation be
repealed, that trade unions be open to all races, that the closed
shop be outlawed, and that black unions be given legal standing
(the same as white unions). The government’s labor minister
accepted the recommendations “in principle” and scheduled early
parliamentary action. A week later the Riekert report proposed a
number of changes aimed at reducing apartheid restrictions,
including an easing of strict controls on entry of nonwhites into
urban areas (the hated “pass laws”), ending the ban against wives
without passes living with husbands who have passes in cities, and
allowing more businesses in black urban residential areas. The
report was declared “acceptable to the government” by its economic
affairs minister.
6) In a
June 1981 review of James Michener’s South Africa-based
The
Covenant, Frances Louw identifies the original (white) sin
of her country:
Michener does not mention here that most of the Voortrekker
Republics had limited-government constitutions. What he does point
out correctly is that they sadly never recognized that other people
too might desire the freedom they pursued so ardently. Their bible
told them that they were to be the masters of the promised land,
and they were determined to impose this belief on the colored
(people of mixed blood), Hottentot, and black peoples who
surrounded them. Thus the seeds were sown for the conflicts of
today.
7) In an
August 1981 editorial bemoaning the “Freedom to Suppress,”
Poole noted this troubling development:
In January, the government of South Africa “banned” two leading
black journalists and permanently shut down two black-owned
newspapers.
8) In
December 1984 Robert Blumen celebrated the writing of South
African exile Tom Sharpe, author of (among other things) “an acidic
criticism of the excesses of racist South African police,” and a
satire about “government surveillance in the name of
anticommunism.”
9) John Blundell, in a long April 1985
feature on the semi-autonomous South African region of Ciskei,
enthused that such then-controversial homelands “may just turn out
to be a Trojan horse that ultimately destroys…apartheid.”
10) In a
May 1985 editorial, Poole suggested that “peaceful political
change is more likely to come as a result of an increasingly
prosperous black population asserting its rights than through an
attempt by well-intentioned American politicians to force South
Africa into economic isolation.”
11) In a
January 1986 editorial arguing against economic sanctions,
Poole advocated a different method for changing the policies of the
“repressive” South African government:
Dare we imagine the impact of thousands of American investors
and millions of American tourists in Cuba and South Africa,
bringing: American political and cultural values with them? It is
widely acknowledged that US firms have been a major force against
economic and social discrimination in South Africa. How much more
could be accomplished by large-scale interaction with ordinary
Americans? Wherever we go, we bring our culture along with us–our
abiding individualism (disregarding race and class), the work
ethic, diversity and choice, and tolerance of others’ views and
lifestyles. American music, movies, TV shows, and consumer products
are powerful implicit expressions of these values…which add up to
one thing–freedom.
12) In a
March 1986 Q&A with South African Zulu leader Gatsha
Buthelezi, Poole asks questions like “What’s the best thing the
United States government could do to help end apartheid?”, and “Is
it possible for blacks and Afrikaners eventually to live together
peaceably in South Africa, or is the legacy of apartheid too
great?”
13) In a
January 1987 essay, South African activist Frances Kendall
(formerly Louw) proposes a roadmap for “how to dismantle apartheid
without pitting race against race, tearing apart the nation, and
destroying the economy.” Among Kendall’s recommendations are
freeing Nelson Mandela, drafting a new constitution that outlaws
discrimination, and including a “bill of rights protecting such
basic rights as freedom of movement, speech, association, religion,
and–unlike most countries’ constituions–property ownership.”
14) In
July 1987, Virginia Postrel celebrated the success of the
Frances Kendall/Leon Louw book
South Africa: The Solution, from which that January 1987
essay was derived:
The Solution has received wide support from black
leaders and from business. Winnie Mandela, wife of imprisoned
African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, has not only
endorsed the book but also written a forward to the Swedish
edition. KwaZulu chief minister Gatsha Buthelezi, reports
Time, has said, “Amid a sea of anger and tension, The
Solution may prove to be a rational, workable answer to South
Africa’s unique problems.” And Sam Motsuenyane, head of the
country’s leading black business association, sits on the board of
trustees of Groundswell, a foundation established by Kendall and
Louw to promote their ideas.
15) In an
August 1987 investment piece, Mark Tier was withering in his
criticism of apartheid:
Unfortunately, the South African state is very well entrenched,
very powerful within the country, and very effectively pursuing a
policy of divide and rule amongst the white and nonwhite
communities. […]
It’s important to consider the moral questions before making any
investment there. The system of apartheid is an anathema, and I
have no desire to support it in any way, shape, or form. […]
[T]here is one form of investment…that combines the desire to
make a profit with the desire to help effect peaceful, libertarian
change in South Africa. Then you can have the best of both worlds:
make money by promoting freedom.
16) In July 1988, Walter Williams
interviewed Louw and Kendall about their book
After Apartheid. Among his questions:
Americans are by and large decent people, and they find that
apartheid and legalized discrimination is offensive. What can
Americans do to help in the situation?
17) In
March 1989, Robert Poole traveled to South Africa for an
eyewitness report. Among his observations:
The big question is how and when [black South Africans] will
achieve full equality before the law. […]
[T]he South African government goes out of its way to obstruct
the free flow of information. Under a three-year-old state of
emergency, it has banned TV coverage of disorders in the townships,
for example. And when I truthfully answered a question on my visa
application indicating that I had had articles published, I was
required to provide samples and to submit a notarized statement
that I was going to South Africa only as a tourist.
The government repeatedly squelches legitimate efforts to build
the kinds of social and political structures necessary for
democracy. Last fall, the fledgling (mostly white) End Conscription
Campaign was banned. And the government has leveled charges of high
treason against leaders of the Alexandra Action Committee, a black
self-help organization in one of Johannesburg’s townships.
[…]
I left South Africa with a mixture of hope and anger. Hope that
the dramatic and rapid changes of the past few years will continue,
bringing urban blacks into the mainstream of economic life, giving
them a stake in the system as a precondition of new political
arrangements.
18) In June
1989, Walter Williams reviewed the
posthumous memoir of anti-apartheid activist Alan Paton.
Excerpt:
In Journey Continued, Paton grapples with the question
of how Afrikaners, who are devout Christians, could promote the
thoroughly racist policies of apartheid. […]
His troubled country…is really only a special case of a much
larger phenomenon in which powerful elites determine social goals.
If individual liberty, property rights, and the rule of law
interfere with the achievement of these social goals, then
individual liberty, property rights, and the rule of law are
ruthlessly suppressed.
19) In July 1989, Reason ran a
cover story by Andrew Clark titled “Quiet Revolution: South
Africa’s Blacks are Realizing Their Economic Power. Can Apartheid
Survive?” Needless to say to anyone except Mark Ames, Clark was not
rooting for apartheid’s survival. Excerpt:
South Africans from across the country’s numerous divides are
struggling to build an economy unhindered by the state’s
all-pervasive restrictions. […]
[R]ecent cracks in the edifice of apartheid have unleased an
entrepreneurial energy that is forcing the 40-year-old National
Party government to successively abandon its racial policies and
rethink its options regarding the future. It is against this
background that “black economic empowerment,” a phrase on the tips
of so man South African tongues these days, can be seen for what it
is: a truly revolutionary force that could finally push South
Africa into the developed and civilized world, eroding the laws
that deprive its people, black and white, of prosperity and
freedom.
20) And in an August 1989
editorial, Poole again made the case against economic sanctions
as the tool for dismantling apartheid (along with its totalitarian
counterparts in the communist world):
Peaceful change is far more likely to come to South Africa by
the continued progress of black economic empowerment, as reported
in these pages last month. (See “Quiet Revolution,” July.) Millions
of upwardly mobile black entrepreneurs, skilled workers, and
managers–who are also a huge consumer market–are the key to
bringing about legal and political equality. […]
Instead of sanctions and disinvestment, we should encourage
American investment, travel, and tourism in repressive societies.
With our fax machines and PCs and MTV, we will liberate South
Africa–and eventually, China and Russia too.
These 20 pieces are not the only non-Marc Swanepoel references
to South Africa in the 1970s-’80s Reason; the biggest
category I left out were the Reaganite proxy-war correspondetry of
Jack Wheeler, which had much less to do with South Africa’s
domestic policies, and more with its role in the Cold War (which,
as I argued in my
Nelson Mandela obituary this year, had the effect of
warping America’s policy and values toward apartheid). Most of the
rest were passing comments about either investment climate or
American political rhetoric. As stated before, please mine the archive for
yourselves.