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Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: South African Blacks
Message-ID: <448@looking.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Oct-85 14:45:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.448
Posted: Fri Oct 25 14:45:55 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 04:16:40 EDT
References: <1534@utcsri.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: can
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 75
Summary: 

In article <1534@utcsri.UUCP> vassos@utcsri.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos) writes:
>> As deplorable as the slavery-like conditions in South Africa are, it's
>> shocking to learn that blacks are lining up to get *in* to South Africa.
>> 
>> Simply put, it's because slave or no, there are jobs in free-market SA
>> and none in the neighbouring dictatorships.
>
>SA a "free-market"?! Adam Smith will be turning in his grave.
>How on earth could an economy based, to use your own words,
>on slavery-like conditions be a "free" market. What's free
>about the economy of a country that banishes the overwhelming majority
>of its population in restricted wastelands (so-called batustans)?
>What's free about an economy that can "offer" starvation wages
>at gunpoint?

Yes, Smith would turn in his grave, but SA is a fairly free nation for
the whites, supported to some extent by the pool of semi-slave labour.
In comparison to Namibia and other surrounding economies, it is relatively
free.  I apologize for the somewhat abosolute sounding statement of my
previous article.  To be fair, many white there don't feel that great either,
but then I've only been able to talk to whites who deliberately left SA.
>
>As for the economic state of what you call "neighbouring dictatorships",
>that is primarily due to the legacy of centuries of colonialism
>and, to no small part, to SA's policies itself. One of these countries,
>Namibia (from where many of the workers "lining up" to get in SA are
>coming), is illegaly occupied by SA troups. To suggest that the
>economy of SA is in good shape because it is a "free market" while the
>economy of the neighbouring countries are in bad shape because they are
>"dicatorships" is just wishful thinking to fit preconceived notions.
>It has nothing to do with reality.
To suggest that the economic troubles of these countries is primarily due
to colonialism smacks of wishful thinking to fit preconceived notions.
Canada, the U.S., Hong Kong, Australia and many other prosperous nations
are all former colonies.  Almost all highly free nations have strong material
success.  Who has more evidence and reality at the bottom line?
>
>> It's not up to us to debate this issue from afar.  They clearly choose
>> to work at $40 per week instead of $0.
>
>This is obvious enough. But the dillema should-black-workers-get-
>$40-per-week-or-should-they-get-$0 is bogus. Why are these the only two
>alternatives? Why aren't these people entitled to decent wages as well
>as to freedom and dignity?
>

These are the current alternatives.  We should work to make more.
But we should not curse the South Africans for creating a $40/week job
where there was none.  Instead we must convince them (using their need
of us) that there is an even better way.

It is the attitude that $40 per week is worse than nothing that has
directly caused the deaths of millions in the drought-ridden parts of
Africa.  Even "left" reports coming out of Ethiopia have been unable
to deny this.  Interfering in other people's lives through force,
even with the best of intentions, seems to often result in more death.
Humans are very good at overcoming death if you take off their chains.

>> With luck, the white supremacy will
>> end soon, and we can make further examination of the situation.
>
>White supremacy will not end "with luck". It will end with the struggle
>of the people fighting against it. One can choose to help their struggle
>or one can choose to turn one's back to them. One way of doing the latter
>is to appeal to "luck" as a way of putting an end to their predicament. 
>
>--Vassos Hadzilacos.

This is why I don't buy South African goods.
If there were enough of me around it would be much easier.  I use the
need South Africans have for me to exert influence on them, not laws
and guns.

-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473