The transition away from feudalism took literally hundreds of years. On the same time scales it took countries to transition out of feudalism, I’d assume any difference that affirmative action would have on South Africa would be absolutely dwarfed by hundreds of years of technological progress.
The transition away from feudalism took literally hundreds of years.
In any particular country, no, not really. The important switches (e.g. the ability of commoners to obtain education beyond primary school) happen much more quickly. However we have a current example: China. Over the last thirty years or so there has been a massive influx of former peasants (without “proper education”) out of the countryside into the industrial workforce and into the cities. Funny how no one suggests there should be an affirmative action program for them.
EHeller’s got the main point, here; we kindof want the transition to go a little faster than ‘centuries’. If we’re careful, we can hopefully make the transition happen in merely a two or three generations, instead.
(Then, of course, Affirmative Action will need to be stopped—which is probably going to be quite a political battle, involving lots of shouting an arguments in Parliament. And hopefully no more than that.)
Yes, that’s also a possibility. There’s the very visible example of Zimbabwe to show what not to do, of course; I’m not saying that there won’t be a mess-up, but if there is a mess-up I’m pretty sure it’ll at least be a different mess-up.
Compare apartheid with feudalism. And notice that a lot of countries transitioned away from the latter didn’t require AA in favor of commoners.
The transition away from feudalism took literally hundreds of years. On the same time scales it took countries to transition out of feudalism, I’d assume any difference that affirmative action would have on South Africa would be absolutely dwarfed by hundreds of years of technological progress.
In any particular country, no, not really. The important switches (e.g. the ability of commoners to obtain education beyond primary school) happen much more quickly. However we have a current example: China. Over the last thirty years or so there has been a massive influx of former peasants (without “proper education”) out of the countryside into the industrial workforce and into the cities. Funny how no one suggests there should be an affirmative action program for them.
EHeller’s got the main point, here; we kindof want the transition to go a little faster than ‘centuries’. If we’re careful, we can hopefully make the transition happen in merely a two or three generations, instead.
(Then, of course, Affirmative Action will need to be stopped—which is probably going to be quite a political battle, involving lots of shouting an arguments in Parliament. And hopefully no more than that.)
Or we can screw up and cause the country to collapse into chaos, i.e., what’s happening now in Zimbabwe.
Yes, that’s also a possibility. There’s the very visible example of Zimbabwe to show what not to do, of course; I’m not saying that there won’t be a mess-up, but if there is a mess-up I’m pretty sure it’ll at least be a different mess-up.