South Africa may no longer have apartheid, but the majority of the population still lives in poverty, the heights of the economy are controlled largely by whites, and rich blacks are concentrated in the upper ranks of the ANC and their families. The rape rate is possibly the highest in the world, with a quarter of men admitting to having committed a rape and a quarter of women to having been raped, while murder is rampant.
The ANC had originally intended to purse socialist policies, including taking away the wealth of the richest whites. Nelson Mandela decided not to do that. There are varying accounts of why, from outright bribery to being convinced, but let’s go with convinced. The story is that once Mandela was released from prison, as he traveled the world, it was explained to him that if white flight occurred, his country would mimic Zimbabwe’s fate, and taking away the wealth of the richest whites and distributing it would cause that white flight.
So most of the redistributive part of the ANC’s program was jettisoned. Blacks were to have political freedom, but whites would control the economy. (Though you certainly don’t want to be a poor white in S. Africa.) Tax rates in S. Africa are typical: low for individuals, lower for corporations.
Bear in mind that when Mandela made this decision the prices of commodities, S. Africa’s main exports, were substantially depressed.
Mandela was in a bind, take that advice as ‘warnings’ and you probably read it better: “if you do this, we will disapprove. We cannot allow such redistribution to work, so it won’t.”
Mandela chose to take what was on the table, political freedom absent redistributive justice.
Was it the right decision?
Yes. Not because it isn’t theoretically possible to do redistribution and make it work, but because at the time it was harder, and because the ANC wasn’t up to the job. Given how they have botched far simpler policy areas, like HIV, given their rampant corruption, the idea that redistribution could be managed by them in a fair way, while maintaining economic growth and avoiding being crushed by the outside reaction is not credible. These are not competent people, they are noticeably incompetent.
S. Africa has significant advantages in its mineral wealth (though that can also be a curse). Resources that the rest of the world must have give you leverage to do what you want, and tell everyone else to take a hike (see Saudi Arabia). But pulling that off requires finesse and it is harder to do if you have a redistributionist ideology, because international elites are happy to tolerate regressive regimes but do not want fair regimes to succeed, lest they show other countries that inequality and unfair trade deals are not inevitable.
Venezuela, though good has been done, is botching their experiment; so is Argentina. S. Africa could never have pulled it off.
Much of this is probably also down to Mandela’s age: he was in his late seventies when he was President. He did not have ten good years left to finesse through this sort of change, he did not have competent heirs or time to create them; instead he had the ANC, whose leaders were corrupt at best.
When the attempt is made at real redistributive justice, as it must be, it will be easiest done if a number of countries do it at about the same time, supporting each other, and acting as a bloc. If key resource nations like Canada, Russia, much of South America and S. Africa were to get together, it would be very difficult to bully them, because they control key resources which cannot be substituted away from except at great cost, and in some cases, at all.
Trade is key in the sense that countries must be able to buy certain key things they can’t make. If producers work together, in solidarity, they can gain policy independence internally. But this can only be done as a group, or great costs will be inflicted by the oligarchical forces of the developed world who do not want to, ever, see 90% tax rates create good economies ever again.