[dragonwriter]

The apartheid government no longer exists because it caused the country to descend into so much chaos that the rulers gave up trying to continue.

So, by the standard you imply with your comparison, the apartheid government—even more certainly than the present regime—did not know how to run a country.

[SeoxyS]

The apartheid government no longer exists because (1) open racism was no longer tenable in the face of an evolving society, and (2) the worldwide sanctions placed on it became too great.

That's fine, but that's also completely orthogonal to the point, which is that:

1/ By most standards, the effectiveness of government has plummetted since the end of apartheid. Crime is up; corruption has increased; resources are running out (nation-wide electricity blackouts last decade, now water); etc.

2/ Open government-sponsored racism still exists today, but most of it is considered to be commendable under the banner of affirmative action.

If we were to take race entirely out of the picture, the apartheid regime would be considered far more effective than the ANC regime. That, of course, is neither realistic nor fair… But we should aspire to a post-racial world where we race is no longer relevant, where both apartheid and affirmative action are considered revolting abominations, but also where we judge governments based on their net effectiveness.

[Sacho]

It's imposible to divorce the effectiveness of government from global phenomenon and long-term knock-on effects from previous governments. For example, the brownout crisis - was it because the ANC government mismanaged funding and refused to repair, renew and build electrical power plants, or was it because the situation left by the apartheid government was unsustainable, and the ANC was left with a "you deal with it" post-it note? It's difficult to know without getting into the specifics of each issue.

My point is that comparing government effectiveness is not as easy as looking at results. This was exemplified by many of the communist satellite states to the USSR, which it sponsored for political gain to its own economic detriment. The satellite states flourished under communism, and as soon as the regime collapsed they suffered - was it the newly-elected democratic government's fault that industry had collapsed and there was rampant inflation, or was it just a long-term effect of previous government policy?

[chesimov]

Fair point, but choosing the electricity crisis as an example is not helping your claim - the Apartheid lot left us with something like 50% overcapacity and almost the cheapest electricity in the world at the time. We actually have less electricity generating capacity right now than at that time. The lack of generting capacity has severely constrained our economy since. When the crisis first bit in the 2000s, many mines had to shut down for the first time in 200 years of continuous operations.

The government had an initial plan to redirect overcapacity in many areas (not just electricity) to rolling out services to those neglected by the Apartheid govt, and then after that to start building infrastructure again (not sure of specifics, maybe 5 years on?). The problem is that in most cases, this never happened. Hence the limits of most infrastructure are gradually being hit, with a knock-on effect for the economy.

[eisa01]

If you have 50% overcapacity you have completely failed to plan your electricity system - that't not really a measure of success

[chesimov]

It was a different time - my understanding is that having a multiply redundant system was important for an isolated pariah state. Think of it like the strategic petroleum reserves in certain isolated states of today. Of course none of that was necessary once SA rejoined the global community. This extra capacity could have been carefully mothballed for later use; instead we are now building 2x brand new coal stations, each of which will be the largest coal plants in the world.

[KhanMahGretsch]

>But we should aspire to a post-racial world where we race is no longer relevant, where both apartheid and affirmative action are considered revolting abominations, but also where we judge governments based on their net effectiveness.

Hear, hear. While "the better angels of our nature" should inform our aspirations, the political, social and economic facts-on-the-ground should inform what action should be taken in order to bring us closer to the ideal.

Affirmative-action is a symptomatic treatment (that could be argued as being punitive) which achieves little-to-nothing in solving the root-problem, while creating a whole new set of problems. Successful integration of former-colonial and indigenous peoples in ZA would have been an unprecedented achievement, but adopting policies that are so obviously regressive will not bring that into reality.