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Africa’s Richest City Is Crumbling Under Chaos and Corruption

100 points by malshe 3y ago

known 3y ago
[dead]
malshe 3y ago
Paywall removed: https://archive.ph/1BK6i https://archive.ph/1BK6i
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
One-function town (gold) suffers when their main support falters. Lots of blame to go around.
- mousetree 3y ago
  Not the case here at all. While mining is important to the overall GDP in the country, the major cause here is 99% due to corruption and underinvestment in infrastructure.
  - solarmist 3y ago
    I think the implication is that was sustained by the cash from mining. Now that cash is less flush you can’t have corruption and a working government. It is obvious which was more important to them now.
  - atonse 3y ago
    The problem with corruption is that it gets worse in a situation like this. When there's scarcity of money and opportunity (often caused by corruption), people get even more corrupted to make sure they take care of themselves before anyone else. Which makes things even worse. How does one even break out of that cycle? Who is the first one to say "I'll give up my corrupt riches so everyone can have a more functioning society?"
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      For everyone’s reference, SA gold production peaked in 1970 and was down 80% by 2010. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/S_Africa_Gold_Production.png/1280px-S_Africa_Gold_Production.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/S_...
      - lgleason 3y ago
        South Africa has a lot of other valuable resources beyond gold. For example, coal, iron etc..
  - lgleason 3y ago
    Exactly, I'll also add failed social policies to this list. The economy of Johannesburg goes well beyond gold. The country has amazing natural resources and some very smart people, but sadly the smart ones are in the minority. My brother in law does land evaluations nation-wide. One of many examples he gave me was that there is a program there to expropriate farms from white land owners and give them to blacks (I'm not referring to the expropriation without compensation FYI). The idea behind this was to give the blacks a way to earn money by being able to have land. He personally observed farms that had been expropriated and it's effect. Before the expropriation they were productive thriving operations, afterwords many ended up ceasing to produce anything and the properties went into dis-repair. Farms, beyond supplying the country with food provide a valuable export.
    - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
      Similar story in Venezuela. It's a political idea to 'give the land back to the people'. But the people they give it to haven't the training, equipment nor financial reserves to actually work the land. Big farms have become big, to compete on margins. Splitting them is a recipe for disaster. No surprise when it goes sour, quickly and decisively.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    See "The Resource Curse" in Economics which predicts that when mining and other extractive industries are important to a countries GDP it will heavily predispose a country to "corruption and underinvestment in infrastructure". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301420713000755 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... > It is found that South Africa has experienced many of the symptoms outlined in the resource curse literature including relatively slow GDP growth, gross inequalities, entrenched poverty and the creation of a rentier state. Overall, it is concluded that South Africa has failed to benefit from natural resource wealth and can be classified as a resource cursed state. Not only has mineral wealth failed to benefit much of South Africa's population, sections of society have actually been harmed through the process of mineral extraction
- mcdonje 3y ago
  I don't know enough about SA to agree or disagree with your analysis, but if anyone wants more info on the "one-function town" idea, see these articles : - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
  - theonlybutlet 3y ago
    yeah this doesn't apply to South Africa really. Perhaps in a more abstract sense, if the wealth of the state is considered a resource...
nradov 3y ago
The serpentza YouTube channel has an interesting perspective from a South African native on how the country has become a failed state and why he left. I've never been there myself so I don't know whether his claims are accurate. https://youtu.be/jHxh_sQHH0E https://youtu.be/jHxh_sQHH0E
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y ago
  I remember watching some BBC documentary on the ANC and South Africa a while back, and there was a clip where some reporter in a news conference asked some minister how he could afford some multi-million dollar house on an official salary of 100k (or whatever). This minister's answer was a classic... "Why don't you just go mind your own business!". Corruption seems like it's become endemic, and with it the infrastructure, economy, etc.
  - lgleason 3y ago
    The previous president, Zuma, constructed a lavish swimming pool at his private residence with public funds. When pressed on it he said it was a fire pool and went so far as to bring in a group with pumps to demonstrate pumping the water out of the pool to put out a fire. Everybody knew it was BS and akin to saying that you swimming pool is a fire prevention tool but...
- zo1 3y ago
  Odd usage of the term "South African native"? He's just simply South African. Either way - he's spot on, this entire country has been crumbling since the mid 90's and the only thing keeping it from becoming another Zimbabwe or Somalia is the sheer momentum of the invested capital and the stubbornness of the productive individuals here. Many of which simply emigrate year after year, making the problem worse as the ratio of unproductive to productive grows greatly. I've been watching it first hand since I moved here almost 2 decades ago. Unfortunately it's a very nice country, so much potential for year-round farming, so much solar, enterprising and self-sufficient populace, rich culture, etc, so it's sad to watch it become this way.
  - deleted 3y ago
infomaniac 3y ago
Joburg native here, moved away about 12 years ago. I still have people there, and every time I go visit its in an even worse state of disrepair; quite upsetting.
- mousetree 3y ago
  Moved away 5 years ago. I've been back to visit 1-2 times every year since. Over the last year or so it felt that things have massively deteriorated. I guess that's the only feeling you can get when you have no electricity most of the day.
nickdothutton 3y ago
The thing about wonderful, sophisticated, complex systems like a modern city, is that you need to be able to maintain them. If you aren’t capable of doing that, for whatever reason, then they rapidly become a sort of trap. This is what has happened to South Africa. I think there’s a non-zero chance it becomes the first anarchy of this present age. A pity, because it could have been a paradise.
- solarmist 3y ago
  Could it have? I’ve never heard anyone claim good things about South Africa as a country.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I do not know what you mean by country, but South Africa is one of the most gorgeous places I have been. It can compete with California. It has natural resources, great climate, flora, history, and by and large, my interactions with people of all stripes were positive. I would even retire in Cape Town, if it were politically stable.
    - solarmist 3y ago
      I mean that based on the government was founded and run. I’m sure the geography and average people are lovely. But it has a hell of handicap to overcome politically.
  - mousetree 3y ago
    That's quite a pessimistic view to have. The country is beautiful, the people are great. The problem is the politicians.
    - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
      The people generally get the politicians and government they deserve.
olah_1 3y ago
The most frustrating thing about decline like this is that we aren’t even allowed to ask the questions that would set us on a path to figuring it out. The Overton Window[0] is set in such a way to perfectly ensure that the decline continues. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
- electriclove 3y ago
  The down voters just proved your point.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    No, the downvotes are for vagueposting. If you have a point, state it.
    - dismalsci3ntist 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - pc86 3y ago
        What the hell does the Overton Window have to do with corruption? Corruption isn't limited to one political party, and I'm willing to bet 95% of the people reading this have no idea how to even apply the Overton Window to South African politics. The only thing I can take from this is that the GP meant "yeah we all know Africans are corrupt, DUH, but we can't say it because of political correctness." I don't know that that's what he meant, but when you're like "well we could discuss the root of this but it's recently become socially unacceptable to do so" of course people are going to assume the worst thing possible.
    - HideousKojima 3y ago
      I don't know enough about South Africa to comment, but I can confidently say that in Zimbabwe the black citizens of the country now have less economic prosperity and less political freedom/equality than they had under the Rhodesian government. Rhodesia never had any racial requirements for voting/representation, at least not until the British insisted on special representitives being created for the black population as a condition of independence (source: Ian Smith's memoirs). They had educational and income requirements in order to vote, and were actively building more schools in majority black areas in order to increase the ability of black citizens to vote (and to have a better education/life in general).
nerdo 3y ago
"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed."
dismalsci3ntist 3y ago
[flagged]
Aulig 3y ago
I visited South Africa in February. You can tell crime is rampant by how every home has 2m walls with barbed wire or electric fencing on top. Most of the country was still very beautiful, but man Johannesburg is really run down. My father was there 30 years ago and he couldn't get over how this once beautiful city could have come to this. Vacancies and broken windows everywhere right in the city center. If you're just looking to go on vacation in the general region, Namibia is a better option in my opinion.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  A fun game to play on Google Maps Street View is to go to Johannesburg or Cape Town and time how long it takes to find a home that doesn't have a spiked/barbed-wire/etc. fence or wall.
  - elp 3y ago
    In my slightly upmarket Johannesburg suburb I would guess about 80% of the houses have electric fences. You can figure out how old the installation is by the number of strands the fence has. It varies with fashion. The other fun game is swapping stories about the dumbest way you have shocked yourself on your own fence. Mine was by trying to lift a branch of my fence while barefoot using an aluminum pool pole. I thought my wife had turned the fence off.
Semaphor 3y ago
A big part of it is years of ANC. They essentially rode the wave of Nelson Mandela (who’s biggest mistake probably was limiting himself to one term, not that he didn’t deserve his rest after decades in prison) ever since the end of apartheid, and especially the poorest kept voting for them. No matter how much corruption they openly showed. And those outages affect the poorest more than anyone else. My wife is from SA, her family is far from rich, but well off enough to afford a generator. It’s not always on, but it really helps bridge the outages when you really need the power. And before the usual white supremacists show up, yes, it was better during apartheid. Fascinating how you have no issues when you can just cut the power and water etc. to all the blacks in their townships.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >And before the usual white supremacists show up, yes, it was better during apartheid Better for WHO is the important thing to remember. An unequal society doesn't get to claim it's better just because a part of it was way better off.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    Yes, that was the part I expressed with the following sentence ;)
- seydor 3y ago
  corruption becomes a value in itself, people adapt to prefer corruption because it gets them further ahead than following rules
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    The people who vote them in are often the poorest and least educated, who don’t benefit from corruption. Though tbf I’m also not sure how great the alternatives are, it’s hard enough keeping up with parties here in Germany ;)
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  >Fascinating how you have no issues when you can just cut the power and water etc. to all the blacks in their townships. And when you aren't legally mandated to hire a certain percentage of black employees at the power company, regardless of how many have the proper education and training. And then spend even more bringing in foreign contractors to fix their mess.
ren_engineer 3y ago
their government is doubling down on the policies that got them here, it's only going to get worse. The state owned power company has admitted there is a chance their grid could completely fail which would turn this into a full fledged humanitarian crisis. They've been warned about this for decades and did nothing, it's not going to get fixed now here's an article from nearly 10 years ago warning about a grid collapse - https://mg.co.za/article/2014-12-11-does-south-africa-face-an-electricity-grid-collapse/ https://mg.co.za/article/2014-12-11-does-south-africa-face-a... this was after being warned years prior and having similar issues as early as 2008. SA is going to collapse and my bet is China will buy everything up for pennies like they've done in other countries. SA citizens will probably be better off honestly
aaomidi 3y ago
I mean, when you have the levels of inequality anywhere, shits bad. Now if you have that inequality on racial lines, shit is *really really bad*. Mix that with globalization and the fact that the only "profitable" industries are the ones that are mainly for white workers, you end up with a situation you can't really "fix".
- mousetree 3y ago
  Most inequality is on racial lines - thousands of years of global racism does that.
ipaddr 3y ago
The end of South African apartheid put the people least qualified in charge and they have been profiting off Nelson Mandela name/party ever since. All of the pressure on South Africa in the 80s to end the apartheid and once it happened those countries abandon South Africa aside from leaders appearing in photos with Mandela. No one is allowed to question the governing party and pressure to reform doesn't exist from external countries for fear of being labelled racist. In the end the poorest suffer.
- nradov 3y ago
  What exactly would you like external countries to do? The USA at least has no compelling national interest to get involved there. And when we try to coerce other countries into acting more like us it always seems to result in blowback and unintended consequences. This is a problem that South Africans need to work out themselves. I wish them success.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    They had a compelling interest to boycott products and exclude that country. Now they need to support their actions with money
loufe 3y ago
When I visited SA and Johannesburg in Jan 2020 it seemed dangerous but alive and turning. From everything I've heard of SA the current political situation is tricky. I was told that the ANC earned "lifetime loyalty" from many as they were the party of Nelson Mandela and ended Apartheid. The problem, as I was told, is this unconditional loyalty has allowed the party to rot thoroughly and so the democratic process is simply unable to do its job. I'm sure that's one aspect of many, but what are the other factors? There is still massive mining potential, but nobody wants to invest given the state of affairs. There is still huge agricultural potential, but again outsiders don't want to invest given the threat of land appropriation for reparations, and those given the land are (again, from what I was told) more often than not poor stewards of it. SA is a truly beautiful and complicated place, I really hope they find their way out of this crisis.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >I'm sure that's one aspect of many, but what are the other factors? You really don't need any more factors than Arpatheid put the country in a bad place and a government that has no interest in fixing anything will not fix that.
  - tim333 3y ago
    Things actually worked quite well under the white government and black africans used to immigrate a fair bit from neighbouring countries as things worked better in SA. Now SA is becoming a bit more like the neighbours like Zimbabwe, for better or worse.
  - friend_and_foe 3y ago
    I'm not trying to justify racism or oppression, but I had a Zulu friend who told me that he preferred it under apartheid. Anecdotal I know, but he said that the main thing was he couldn't go to certain places without a work permit. There was little corruption and the place was well maintained. He said now nobody is free, you have to bribe someone to accomplish anything, the government still abuses everyone but the only difference is they aren't white people. He's a political refugee now fleeing political violence. These things are very complicated. I dont think ZA or any society should be under apartheid. They could have a popular government and work well, but for some reason they haven't accomplished that. What has to happen I don't know, but I do know that the racists use it as an example to agitate for apartheid again and eventually people are going to get tired of it and attempt to resolve the problems in some way. Ignoring them or simply blaming them on apartheid will only ensure that the wrong solutions are the ones that get implemented. Nobody is willing to have an honest discussion about these problems, they just scapegoat their political opponents, and this is what will prevent a proper solution to anything.
taylodl 3y ago
Interesting comments. I would have thought the average HNer would understand why systems fall into disrepair without having to resort to old and tired racist tropes.
- 93po 3y ago
  Were you hoping to start curious discussion with your own comment?
  - taylodl 3y ago
    We're best positioned to rise above the racist stereotypes yet here we are struggling. We know operations is hard, really hard, and that it's oftentimes harder to keep systems running than it was to build them. Part of it is funding was allocated for the building (wealthy people built it) and we often lack funding for maintenance (poor people trying to maintain) and the system falls into disrepair as a result. Most of us here see this in our work everyday, so I'm curious as to why we can't recognize that same pattern when it's happening with real objects instead of our abstract ones?
- blake_himself 3y ago
  Dude, we evolved on different continents for 50,000 years. We look different. Our bodies' biochemistry differs (different medications for whites + blacks for blood pressure). Why do you think brains came out the same? They didn't, and all the hard data, and all the evidence of everyone's eyes - how black vs white, or other populations, live, shows that. It's ugly, it's not nice, people don't know what to do about it, it's a can of worms, but it's true.
  - tim333 3y ago
    Dunno - most science studies seem to suggest culture rather than genetics.
    - tim333 3y ago
      One interesting data point for example - African Americans in general earn less that whites but Nigerian Americans earn more. Probably because they have selected the highly educated ones rather than genetics. https://twitter.com/me_uko/status/1650389358187360262 https://twitter.com/me_uko/status/1650389358187360262
x0x0 3y ago
There were some fascinating comments previously posted by /u/zx76 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33684992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33684992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33685959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33685959 essentially graft on an enormous scale so that after $40B of investment, the monopoly power company generates significantly less power than 15 years ago. Meanwhile, the entirety of society has had to structure itself to accommodate 4-6 hours of blackouts per day, with a stunning level of required individual investment in batteries, solar, generators, etc. And now the power company is struggling to just regularly have 4-6 hours of blackouts per day.
- elp 3y ago
  The ruling ANC is a 3 way alliance between the actual ANC (Nelson Mandela's party) , the largest trade union, and the South African Communist Party. They believe in heavy handed intervention to help the economy grow. Amongst many other problems this includes a policy of cadre deployment. I.e the party faithful running all state institutions which are legislated to be monopolies as much as possible. Naturally the party faithful have zero skill in running the institution and need to deal out massive amounts of patronage to keep in favor. This includes all senior members of the justice cluster as well obviously. Even a saint would be corrupt in this environment. The old apartheid government were also heavily corrupt but managed to at least make sure state institutions were run by semi competent people and kept a limit on the amount of corruption. The ANC is also learnt from the apartheid government and like the good racists they have become have also steadily replaced staff of the wrong race in those institutions but haven't bothered worry about knowledge transfer so all the old seniors engineers who knew how and why things work are gone.
  - x0x0 3y ago
    I remember someone -- I think an econ professor? -- say something that struck me as smart. There's lots of corruption, but it's pretty important whether the service is provided. It's one thing if government is corrupt, and the brother / kid is getting kickbacks, and maybe users pay 20 or 30 or even 100% more than it should ideally cost. That's a problem. It's a whole different story if the government is corrupt, and you're paying the corrupt price, and you don't even get the electricity.
woldemariam 3y ago
by what metric is Johannesburg the richest city in Africa?
TMWNN 3y ago
Highly relevant Foreign Policy article: There Are No Successful Black Nations | And the indignity and helplessness of blacks in America won’t end until we have a first-world African nation to lift up our people. <https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4x2vbu/there_are_no_successful_black_nations_and_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4x2vbu/there_ar...>
ldehaan 3y ago
[dead]
fuckingkike 3y ago
[flagged]

100 points by malshe 3y ago

known 3y ago

[dead]

malshe 3y ago

Paywall removed: https://archive.ph/1BK6i https://archive.ph/1BK6i

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

One-function town (gold) suffers when their main support falters. Lots of blame to go around.

mousetree 3y ago
Not the case here at all. While mining is important to the overall GDP in the country, the major cause here is 99% due to corruption and underinvestment in infrastructure.
- solarmist 3y ago
  I think the implication is that was sustained by the cash from mining. Now that cash is less flush you can’t have corruption and a working government. It is obvious which was more important to them now.
- atonse 3y ago
  The problem with corruption is that it gets worse in a situation like this. When there's scarcity of money and opportunity (often caused by corruption), people get even more corrupted to make sure they take care of themselves before anyone else. Which makes things even worse. How does one even break out of that cycle? Who is the first one to say "I'll give up my corrupt riches so everyone can have a more functioning society?"
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    For everyone’s reference, SA gold production peaked in 1970 and was down 80% by 2010. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/S_Africa_Gold_Production.png/1280px-S_Africa_Gold_Production.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/S_...
    - lgleason 3y ago
      South Africa has a lot of other valuable resources beyond gold. For example, coal, iron etc..
- lgleason 3y ago
  Exactly, I'll also add failed social policies to this list. The economy of Johannesburg goes well beyond gold. The country has amazing natural resources and some very smart people, but sadly the smart ones are in the minority. My brother in law does land evaluations nation-wide. One of many examples he gave me was that there is a program there to expropriate farms from white land owners and give them to blacks (I'm not referring to the expropriation without compensation FYI). The idea behind this was to give the blacks a way to earn money by being able to have land. He personally observed farms that had been expropriated and it's effect. Before the expropriation they were productive thriving operations, afterwords many ended up ceasing to produce anything and the properties went into dis-repair. Farms, beyond supplying the country with food provide a valuable export.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    Similar story in Venezuela. It's a political idea to 'give the land back to the people'. But the people they give it to haven't the training, equipment nor financial reserves to actually work the land. Big farms have become big, to compete on margins. Splitting them is a recipe for disaster. No surprise when it goes sour, quickly and decisively.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  See "The Resource Curse" in Economics which predicts that when mining and other extractive industries are important to a countries GDP it will heavily predispose a country to "corruption and underinvestment in infrastructure". https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301420713000755 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... > It is found that South Africa has experienced many of the symptoms outlined in the resource curse literature including relatively slow GDP growth, gross inequalities, entrenched poverty and the creation of a rentier state. Overall, it is concluded that South Africa has failed to benefit from natural resource wealth and can be classified as a resource cursed state. Not only has mineral wealth failed to benefit much of South Africa's population, sections of society have actually been harmed through the process of mineral extraction
mcdonje 3y ago
I don't know enough about SA to agree or disagree with your analysis, but if anyone wants more info on the "one-function town" idea, see these articles : - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- theonlybutlet 3y ago
  yeah this doesn't apply to South Africa really. Perhaps in a more abstract sense, if the wealth of the state is considered a resource...

nradov 3y ago

The serpentza YouTube channel has an interesting perspective from a South African native on how the country has become a failed state and why he left. I've never been there myself so I don't know whether his claims are accurate. https://youtu.be/jHxh_sQHH0E https://youtu.be/jHxh_sQHH0E

Simon_O_Rourke 3y ago
I remember watching some BBC documentary on the ANC and South Africa a while back, and there was a clip where some reporter in a news conference asked some minister how he could afford some multi-million dollar house on an official salary of 100k (or whatever). This minister's answer was a classic... "Why don't you just go mind your own business!". Corruption seems like it's become endemic, and with it the infrastructure, economy, etc.
- lgleason 3y ago
  The previous president, Zuma, constructed a lavish swimming pool at his private residence with public funds. When pressed on it he said it was a fire pool and went so far as to bring in a group with pumps to demonstrate pumping the water out of the pool to put out a fire. Everybody knew it was BS and akin to saying that you swimming pool is a fire prevention tool but...
zo1 3y ago
Odd usage of the term "South African native"? He's just simply South African. Either way - he's spot on, this entire country has been crumbling since the mid 90's and the only thing keeping it from becoming another Zimbabwe or Somalia is the sheer momentum of the invested capital and the stubbornness of the productive individuals here. Many of which simply emigrate year after year, making the problem worse as the ratio of unproductive to productive grows greatly. I've been watching it first hand since I moved here almost 2 decades ago. Unfortunately it's a very nice country, so much potential for year-round farming, so much solar, enterprising and self-sufficient populace, rich culture, etc, so it's sad to watch it become this way.
- deleted 3y ago

infomaniac 3y ago

Joburg native here, moved away about 12 years ago. I still have people there, and every time I go visit its in an even worse state of disrepair; quite upsetting.

mousetree 3y ago
Moved away 5 years ago. I've been back to visit 1-2 times every year since. Over the last year or so it felt that things have massively deteriorated. I guess that's the only feeling you can get when you have no electricity most of the day.

nickdothutton 3y ago

The thing about wonderful, sophisticated, complex systems like a modern city, is that you need to be able to maintain them. If you aren’t capable of doing that, for whatever reason, then they rapidly become a sort of trap. This is what has happened to South Africa. I think there’s a non-zero chance it becomes the first anarchy of this present age. A pity, because it could have been a paradise.

solarmist 3y ago
Could it have? I’ve never heard anyone claim good things about South Africa as a country.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I do not know what you mean by country, but South Africa is one of the most gorgeous places I have been. It can compete with California. It has natural resources, great climate, flora, history, and by and large, my interactions with people of all stripes were positive. I would even retire in Cape Town, if it were politically stable.
  - solarmist 3y ago
    I mean that based on the government was founded and run. I’m sure the geography and average people are lovely. But it has a hell of handicap to overcome politically.
- mousetree 3y ago
  That's quite a pessimistic view to have. The country is beautiful, the people are great. The problem is the politicians.
  - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
    The people generally get the politicians and government they deserve.

olah_1 3y ago

The most frustrating thing about decline like this is that we aren’t even allowed to ask the questions that would set us on a path to figuring it out. The Overton Window[0] is set in such a way to perfectly ensure that the decline continues. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

electriclove 3y ago
The down voters just proved your point.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  No, the downvotes are for vagueposting. If you have a point, state it.
  - dismalsci3ntist 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - pc86 3y ago
      What the hell does the Overton Window have to do with corruption? Corruption isn't limited to one political party, and I'm willing to bet 95% of the people reading this have no idea how to even apply the Overton Window to South African politics. The only thing I can take from this is that the GP meant "yeah we all know Africans are corrupt, DUH, but we can't say it because of political correctness." I don't know that that's what he meant, but when you're like "well we could discuss the root of this but it's recently become socially unacceptable to do so" of course people are going to assume the worst thing possible.
  - HideousKojima 3y ago
    I don't know enough about South Africa to comment, but I can confidently say that in Zimbabwe the black citizens of the country now have less economic prosperity and less political freedom/equality than they had under the Rhodesian government. Rhodesia never had any racial requirements for voting/representation, at least not until the British insisted on special representitives being created for the black population as a condition of independence (source: Ian Smith's memoirs). They had educational and income requirements in order to vote, and were actively building more schools in majority black areas in order to increase the ability of black citizens to vote (and to have a better education/life in general).

nerdo 3y ago

"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed."

dismalsci3ntist 3y ago

[flagged]

Aulig 3y ago

I visited South Africa in February. You can tell crime is rampant by how every home has 2m walls with barbed wire or electric fencing on top. Most of the country was still very beautiful, but man Johannesburg is really run down. My father was there 30 years ago and he couldn't get over how this once beautiful city could have come to this. Vacancies and broken windows everywhere right in the city center. If you're just looking to go on vacation in the general region, Namibia is a better option in my opinion.

HideousKojima 3y ago
A fun game to play on Google Maps Street View is to go to Johannesburg or Cape Town and time how long it takes to find a home that doesn't have a spiked/barbed-wire/etc. fence or wall.
- elp 3y ago
  In my slightly upmarket Johannesburg suburb I would guess about 80% of the houses have electric fences. You can figure out how old the installation is by the number of strands the fence has. It varies with fashion. The other fun game is swapping stories about the dumbest way you have shocked yourself on your own fence. Mine was by trying to lift a branch of my fence while barefoot using an aluminum pool pole. I thought my wife had turned the fence off.

Semaphor 3y ago

A big part of it is years of ANC. They essentially rode the wave of Nelson Mandela (who’s biggest mistake probably was limiting himself to one term, not that he didn’t deserve his rest after decades in prison) ever since the end of apartheid, and especially the poorest kept voting for them. No matter how much corruption they openly showed. And those outages affect the poorest more than anyone else. My wife is from SA, her family is far from rich, but well off enough to afford a generator. It’s not always on, but it really helps bridge the outages when you really need the power. And before the usual white supremacists show up, yes, it was better during apartheid. Fascinating how you have no issues when you can just cut the power and water etc. to all the blacks in their townships.

mrguyorama 3y ago
>And before the usual white supremacists show up, yes, it was better during apartheid Better for WHO is the important thing to remember. An unequal society doesn't get to claim it's better just because a part of it was way better off.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  Yes, that was the part I expressed with the following sentence ;)
seydor 3y ago
corruption becomes a value in itself, people adapt to prefer corruption because it gets them further ahead than following rules
- Semaphor 3y ago
  The people who vote them in are often the poorest and least educated, who don’t benefit from corruption. Though tbf I’m also not sure how great the alternatives are, it’s hard enough keeping up with parties here in Germany ;)
HideousKojima 3y ago
>Fascinating how you have no issues when you can just cut the power and water etc. to all the blacks in their townships. And when you aren't legally mandated to hire a certain percentage of black employees at the power company, regardless of how many have the proper education and training. And then spend even more bringing in foreign contractors to fix their mess.

ren_engineer 3y ago

their government is doubling down on the policies that got them here, it's only going to get worse. The state owned power company has admitted there is a chance their grid could completely fail which would turn this into a full fledged humanitarian crisis. They've been warned about this for decades and did nothing, it's not going to get fixed now here's an article from nearly 10 years ago warning about a grid collapse - https://mg.co.za/article/2014-12-11-does-south-africa-face-an-electricity-grid-collapse/ https://mg.co.za/article/2014-12-11-does-south-africa-face-a... this was after being warned years prior and having similar issues as early as 2008. SA is going to collapse and my bet is China will buy everything up for pennies like they've done in other countries. SA citizens will probably be better off honestly

aaomidi 3y ago

I mean, when you have the levels of inequality anywhere, shits bad. Now if you have that inequality on racial lines, shit is *really really bad*. Mix that with globalization and the fact that the only "profitable" industries are the ones that are mainly for white workers, you end up with a situation you can't really "fix".

mousetree 3y ago
Most inequality is on racial lines - thousands of years of global racism does that.

ipaddr 3y ago

The end of South African apartheid put the people least qualified in charge and they have been profiting off Nelson Mandela name/party ever since. All of the pressure on South Africa in the 80s to end the apartheid and once it happened those countries abandon South Africa aside from leaders appearing in photos with Mandela. No one is allowed to question the governing party and pressure to reform doesn't exist from external countries for fear of being labelled racist. In the end the poorest suffer.

nradov 3y ago
What exactly would you like external countries to do? The USA at least has no compelling national interest to get involved there. And when we try to coerce other countries into acting more like us it always seems to result in blowback and unintended consequences. This is a problem that South Africans need to work out themselves. I wish them success.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  They had a compelling interest to boycott products and exclude that country. Now they need to support their actions with money

loufe 3y ago

When I visited SA and Johannesburg in Jan 2020 it seemed dangerous but alive and turning. From everything I've heard of SA the current political situation is tricky. I was told that the ANC earned "lifetime loyalty" from many as they were the party of Nelson Mandela and ended Apartheid. The problem, as I was told, is this unconditional loyalty has allowed the party to rot thoroughly and so the democratic process is simply unable to do its job. I'm sure that's one aspect of many, but what are the other factors? There is still massive mining potential, but nobody wants to invest given the state of affairs. There is still huge agricultural potential, but again outsiders don't want to invest given the threat of land appropriation for reparations, and those given the land are (again, from what I was told) more often than not poor stewards of it. SA is a truly beautiful and complicated place, I really hope they find their way out of this crisis.

mrguyorama 3y ago
>I'm sure that's one aspect of many, but what are the other factors? You really don't need any more factors than Arpatheid put the country in a bad place and a government that has no interest in fixing anything will not fix that.
- tim333 3y ago
  Things actually worked quite well under the white government and black africans used to immigrate a fair bit from neighbouring countries as things worked better in SA. Now SA is becoming a bit more like the neighbours like Zimbabwe, for better or worse.
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  I'm not trying to justify racism or oppression, but I had a Zulu friend who told me that he preferred it under apartheid. Anecdotal I know, but he said that the main thing was he couldn't go to certain places without a work permit. There was little corruption and the place was well maintained. He said now nobody is free, you have to bribe someone to accomplish anything, the government still abuses everyone but the only difference is they aren't white people. He's a political refugee now fleeing political violence. These things are very complicated. I dont think ZA or any society should be under apartheid. They could have a popular government and work well, but for some reason they haven't accomplished that. What has to happen I don't know, but I do know that the racists use it as an example to agitate for apartheid again and eventually people are going to get tired of it and attempt to resolve the problems in some way. Ignoring them or simply blaming them on apartheid will only ensure that the wrong solutions are the ones that get implemented. Nobody is willing to have an honest discussion about these problems, they just scapegoat their political opponents, and this is what will prevent a proper solution to anything.

taylodl 3y ago

Interesting comments. I would have thought the average HNer would understand why systems fall into disrepair without having to resort to old and tired racist tropes.

93po 3y ago
Were you hoping to start curious discussion with your own comment?
- taylodl 3y ago
  We're best positioned to rise above the racist stereotypes yet here we are struggling. We know operations is hard, really hard, and that it's oftentimes harder to keep systems running than it was to build them. Part of it is funding was allocated for the building (wealthy people built it) and we often lack funding for maintenance (poor people trying to maintain) and the system falls into disrepair as a result. Most of us here see this in our work everyday, so I'm curious as to why we can't recognize that same pattern when it's happening with real objects instead of our abstract ones?
blake_himself 3y ago
Dude, we evolved on different continents for 50,000 years. We look different. Our bodies' biochemistry differs (different medications for whites + blacks for blood pressure). Why do you think brains came out the same? They didn't, and all the hard data, and all the evidence of everyone's eyes - how black vs white, or other populations, live, shows that. It's ugly, it's not nice, people don't know what to do about it, it's a can of worms, but it's true.
- tim333 3y ago
  Dunno - most science studies seem to suggest culture rather than genetics.
  - tim333 3y ago
    One interesting data point for example - African Americans in general earn less that whites but Nigerian Americans earn more. Probably because they have selected the highly educated ones rather than genetics. https://twitter.com/me_uko/status/1650389358187360262 https://twitter.com/me_uko/status/1650389358187360262

x0x0 3y ago

There were some fascinating comments previously posted by /u/zx76 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33684992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33684992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33685959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33685959 essentially graft on an enormous scale so that after $40B of investment, the monopoly power company generates significantly less power than 15 years ago. Meanwhile, the entirety of society has had to structure itself to accommodate 4-6 hours of blackouts per day, with a stunning level of required individual investment in batteries, solar, generators, etc. And now the power company is struggling to just regularly have 4-6 hours of blackouts per day.

elp 3y ago
The ruling ANC is a 3 way alliance between the actual ANC (Nelson Mandela's party) , the largest trade union, and the South African Communist Party. They believe in heavy handed intervention to help the economy grow. Amongst many other problems this includes a policy of cadre deployment. I.e the party faithful running all state institutions which are legislated to be monopolies as much as possible. Naturally the party faithful have zero skill in running the institution and need to deal out massive amounts of patronage to keep in favor. This includes all senior members of the justice cluster as well obviously. Even a saint would be corrupt in this environment. The old apartheid government were also heavily corrupt but managed to at least make sure state institutions were run by semi competent people and kept a limit on the amount of corruption. The ANC is also learnt from the apartheid government and like the good racists they have become have also steadily replaced staff of the wrong race in those institutions but haven't bothered worry about knowledge transfer so all the old seniors engineers who knew how and why things work are gone.
- x0x0 3y ago
  I remember someone -- I think an econ professor? -- say something that struck me as smart. There's lots of corruption, but it's pretty important whether the service is provided. It's one thing if government is corrupt, and the brother / kid is getting kickbacks, and maybe users pay 20 or 30 or even 100% more than it should ideally cost. That's a problem. It's a whole different story if the government is corrupt, and you're paying the corrupt price, and you don't even get the electricity.

woldemariam 3y ago

by what metric is Johannesburg the richest city in Africa?

TMWNN 3y ago

Highly relevant Foreign Policy article: There Are No Successful Black Nations | And the indignity and helplessness of blacks in America won’t end until we have a first-world African nation to lift up our people. <https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4x2vbu/there_are_no_successful_black_nations_and_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/4x2vbu/there_ar...>

ldehaan 3y ago

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fuckingkike 3y ago

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