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Crime and poverty in the United States and post-apartheid South Africa have similar economic causes.
The largest issue facing post-apartheid South Africa is that plumbing, electricity, mail and other basic infrastructure only had to support 13% of the population during apartheid. The country was simply underdeveloped. Nobody bothered to sustainably scale prosperity. Now, in 2024, a lot of infrastructure for the 13% cannot scale without demolition and ground-up redesign.
More than half of the history of the American project (though not the American nation), if we start at 1619, enslaved a sizable minority. Women, indigenous peoples, and many others persisted with “3rd-world” rights or “3rd-world” poverty within “1st-world” wealth.
The past fifty years of welfare for the top 0.1% *undid* civil rights gains by women, blacks, and other marginalized groups. While civil rights promised to let them enlarge the wealth island, witchcraft like fiat and neoliberalism kept the poverty:wealth ratio stable. 4 replies
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