Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

~ m ' chairman, s Hugh McColl, commented, Y think it's [South
Akh's] one of the most wonderful countries in the world . . . ."#
From this ppective, US workers stand to benefit from
sanctions that hasten the liberation and development of South
and southern Africa. On the one hand, they would no longer
face the unfair competition fostered by transnational corporate
effsrts to maxhh profits without regard to the welfare of the
people on either side of the Atlantic. On the other hand,
development and rising incomes of the Independent states of
Southern A€rica, and eventually of a liberated South Africa, itself,
will foster far grater mutually beneficial trade.
F m a more positive viewpoint, southern Africa, including
South Africa" comprises a land area as big as the Uniaed States,
with a population of over 100 millian people. Available data
suggests that the US sells about eight times as much goods, per
capita, to developed cmtries as to Africa. Once the South
Ahican pple win their liberation, they will undoubtedly
dlish a floox under heir wages, ending the unEair competition
that acts as a drag on the working and living conditions of US
workers. As the peoples of South and southern Abio work
together to build a balanced, inteptd regional economy, they
wiU provide a growing market, up to eight times as large as at
present, for US machinery and equipment. In short, the full
liberation and development of South and southern Africa would
lay the fowndati~ns for inmasingly productive employment
opportunities and rising living standards on both sides of the
Atlantic
Notes
1. See Ann Seidman and Nwa Makgetla, Outposts of ithquJy
Cnpt'kd: Southem Afrea in the CkatTgjng Global Emomy (Westport,
Cr: Lawrence Hill, 1980).
2 New York Th, 2 Oaober 1987.