A common misconception in South African political commentary is that Apartheid was somehow 'capitalist'. This lie is peddled by Apartheid beneficiaries whenever we try to speak of socialism. They ask where socialism has worked. Well, it worked here, for them

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In as much as the National Party declared Apartheid an official policy in 1948, the NP itself first came into power in 1924, but the roots of Apartheid thought go further back still, to around 1902, right after the Anglo-Boer War

The Anglo-Boer War was effectively Boers fighting with Brits over the gold in the Reef. The British were brutal, they rounded up civilians—women and children included—and placed them in concentration camps, burned down their farms and all harvest so Boer soldiers could starve

Diseases broke out in the camps and thousands of women and children started dying. In the end, the British broke the Boers and defeated them in 1902. Naturally, the Boers were resentful, but it wasn't because of the war, but because the British were more successful, generally

The Boers believed the British and the Jews were successful because they themselves were poor. For years, to 1924 when the National Party came into power and beyond that, the Boers were decidedly what they today call leftists and socialists

In fact, the Nats first came into government in coalition with the left-wing Labour Party and had the full support of South Africa’s Communist Party. Supporters of the Labour Party were the ones who instigated the 1922 revolt against capitalists https://twitter.com/SizweLo/status/1378678082266136577?s=20

As DF Malan put it in 1923, the National Party was "squarely opposed capitalistic and monopolistic domination and exploitation of the people". From then on this was to be the outlook of the National Party and that of Boers generally, that capitalism and monopoly were evil

The Afrikaner newspaper Volkshandel in 1941 said: "every sober-minded, thinking Afrikaner is fed up to the top of his throat with so-called laissez faire—let-it-be—capitalism with its soul-destroying materialism and the spirit of 'every man for himself and devil for us all'.

"We are sick of it because of the legacy of Afrikaner poor whiteism and the condition which makes the Afrikaner as a spectator in the business of his own country."

Boers hated capitalism. They were anti wealth-creation. They opposed capitalism and supported volk socialism which would limit competition in the labour market. This was because compared to English-speakers, the Boers were terrible in business...

In 1938 Boers controlled 87% of agriculture, but they only held 1% of mining, 2% of manufacturing and construction, 8% of commerce and 5% of finance. Yet they supported Apartheid, but not because they wanted to go into business, but because they wanted to keep farming

They wanted Apartheid homelands to restrict the movement of rural Black people from the farms to the cities where they could earn more. The South African Agricultural Union wanted strict pass laws for this very purpose

As one NP minister put it: "the task of government is to protect those who make agriculture their life task against capitalists who would ruin them and create monopolistic conditions."

Dutch immigrant and future Apartheid Prime Minister, Hendrik Verwoerd argued that Boers were under-represented in various professions, but neglected to point out that it was because they actually really just liked farming

Verwoerd forgot to mention that Boers dropped out of school earlier, had larger families than everyone else and considered hard work demeaning for white people, and were generally unskilled

He also was a strong proponent of affirmative action, saying Boers must be allocated jobs "according to their proportionality of the white population". In other words, a quota system

Verwoerd also said Boer hopes lay in "taking over the influential positions in commerce and industry in accordance with his proportion of the population."

The Boers believed as Verwoerd put it, that the poor white problem, could be solved "by temporary discrimination" in favour of Boers "even if it should superficially resemble favouritism." They knew that the quota system was the only way to address imbalances

More importantly, they understood that Boer advancement meant taking ownership and control of the major means of production, such as steel mills, the post office, electricity, and railroads. Hence SOEs were taken over and run the way that they were https://www.patreon.com/posts/48798328 

According to Verwoerd, "the only organization in the country which has the power to deal really effectively with the problem [of Boer poverty] is undoubtedly the Government."

Apartheid was never capitalist. It supported state ownership of the major means of production and the regulation of major capitalist enterprises. It worked wonderfully for white South Africans, which explains why they are dead-set against seeing Black people do the same today

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