Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…It’s not unimaginable. It is much more unlikely. What Zimbabwe didn’t have was 30 percent of the electorate always voting for the center. It’s probably South Africa’s saving grace. To try and do in South Africa what was done in Zimbabwe would be very, very hard. There would be concerted resistance from across the society. It would be very, very hard. If we think about the South African economy, my sense is there’s ongoing de-industrialization. Mining at times does very well. It may have a very bright future with all this investment in hardware. Agriculture may have a very bright future as we’re seeing, say, in Brazil. And if the economic future of South Africa is many more exports of agricultural products and mining outputs, do you worry that’s bad for income inequality? Or am I not identifying the issue correctly? No, I think that you’re right. I think that agriculture has been a great success over the last 30 years and can be much, much more successful. Mining has been a bit of a disaster because it’s been very badly managed by public policy, but there is potentially — with different politics — a great future in that. Could it produce more inequality? South Africa’s great, great problem is human capital and its incapacity to build an education system which is going to make the majority of the population employable in more than unskilled labor. That is probably the blockage to a more equal country.…

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