The U.S. and other western powers, together with the World Bank, have had a chilling effect on economic policy debate in South Africa. It was vibrant with ideas about how a people, when mobilized, might begin to address massive social inequalities. In outlining its strategy for rebuilding and restructuring the economy, popular participation language has disappeared. Indeed, corporate pressures within South Africa and from the U.S. and other western governments led to the elimination of a separate RDP office in 1996. South African writer Daria Caliguire concluded that this move will in effect downgrade the importance of reconstruction and development in government policy discussions.
Economic redistribution is central to the final elimination of apartheid's legacy.
Since 1975 the black population's share of total income in South Africa has been rising. Even so, the top 20 percent of the African population is getting richer, while the bottom 80 percent is getting poorer. U.S. political and economic policy has focused heavily on helping the small black middle class, in effect accelerating this dangerous trend. The U.S. must reconsider its emphasis on building a black middle class in South Africa. The already volatile demands from South Africa's rural and urban poor for sharing the fruits of victory will intensify unless the government and the U.S., as its major bilateral patron, are able to help provide housing, health care, schools, and jobs.