Opinion

Blacks riot on the streets of Soweto and are beaten back with tear gas and night sticks. After a short truce another round of violence begins.

Such images of South Africa make a peaceful end to apartheid seem impossible. The alternatives—white Afrikaner supremacy or black racial dictatorship—are both unappealing and unjust.

But powerful new ideas are giving hope that South Africa can avoid further violence. They are found in Frances Kendall and Leon Louw’s book, After Apartheid: The Solution for South Africa (Institute for Contemporary Studies, San Francisco) the American edition of their South African best-seller.

Kendall and Louw, wife and husband citizens of South Africa, propose a system of semi-autonomous cantons (the Swiss equivalent of our states) that would decentralize power and secure basic liberties for blacks and whites. The central government would be reduced to looking after national defense, monetary policy, and a supreme court. The cantons, which would be about the size of an American county, would be responsible for all other public policy. A written constitution would insure that canton governments could not confiscate property, pass discriminatory laws, or restrict freedom of movement.

The canton system would promote a peaceful coexistence of South Africa’s disparate minorities. Since government power could not be used to enforce anybody’s racial preferences, those who wish to practice segregation must do so at their own expense by purchasing all the property in a canton.

In their epilogue Kendall and Louw show how this system would work by “reprinting” an article from the December 28, 1999 issue of the International Tribune called “A World Within One Country.” Racist Afrikaners have established a white supremacist canton by buying all the property while black marxists have established a workers paradise by doing the same. Any unhappy citizens of these cantons have moved to the more prosperous and integrated free-market cantons. South Africa has been transformed from a “conflict-ridden and divided country to one of the world’s most stable and prosperous nations.”

After Apartheid has brought huge response in South Africa. It has sold 30,000 copies in a country where 5,000 copies sold make a number one best seller. Black leader Winnie Mandela has declared that the book’s blueprint provides “hope for a shattered nation”; and KwaZulu chief Getsha Buthelezi has said that it “may prove to be a rational, workable answer to South Africa’s unique problems.” White leaders have been more cautious, but even right wing leader Hendrik Verwoerd, the son of apartheid’s main architect has said the book “will open eyes to other possibilities.”

Politically, the book is playing an increasingly important role. Louw was recently asked to run for president by four different political parties. Throughout the recent South Africa elections, themes from the book cropped up. Kendall and Louw however, are concentrating on education, not politics. They have established a multi-million dollar foundation called Groundswell to promote their ideas among blacks and whites.

Kendall and Louw’s educational efforts have a good chance of succeeding. Under apartheid blacks live in a socialist world, one in which government ownership stifles opportunity. Kendall and Louw do not offer black people massive redistribution of wealth or large affirmative action programs but rather the chance to have their own homes and start their own businesses. The chance for success is something that a system rooted in private property and free exchange can offer, unlike the systems promised by the socialists, Marxists, and other statists.

Those same regulations that have suppressed blacks also suppress many whites. As Kendall and Louw point out, apartheid is destroying South Africa’s enormous economic potential. The canton system would create greater economic growth and more opportunity for whites. At the same time, it would diffuse white fears of black totalitarianism.

Groups benefitting from apartheid—government protected monopolies, bureaucrats, and other special interest groups—will not favor the authors’ proposal. But, as the famous economist John Maynard Keynes wrote, “It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.” The ideas of Kendall and Louw offer a vision of private property, free exchange, and local rule which is attractive to almost all people. South Africa has long needed a bright vision of what is to come after apartheid. Frances Kendall and Leon Louw have given it.

Johne Majewski is a fellow of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.