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If South Africa does not pursue economic reform and instead continues along its current trajectory, the average person in the world will be more than four times richer than the average South African by 2056.

In 1994, the per capita GDP of the average global citizen was one and a half times that of the average South African. By 2025, the figure had risen to more than twice that of the average South African. On current trends it reaches over four times as much by 2056.

This is according to an analysis by The Common Sense, which looked at World Bank data on real GDP per capita for South Africa and the world between 1994 and 2025, and then projected both series to 2056. The projection is based on the assumption that real economic growth will hold at 1.2% a year for South Africa and 3.1% for the world, in line with current International Monetary Fund medium-term estimates, and that the relevant economies will hold their established population growth rates. Altering the assumptions means the projections are also altered, but the broader thrust of the assessments holds unless South Africa gets onto a materially higher growth track or the global economy experiences an unanticipated reversal.

On that basis, world GDP per capita reaches $23 242 by 2056, while South Africa's reaches $5 493.

Between 1994 and around 2007, South Africa was moreor less keeping up with the global trend line. That is because for those years its economy was growing at a rate of 3.6%. Subsequent to 2008, the rate of growth collapsed and has averaged a level of much closer to 1.0%. The global economy has, however, continued to grow strongly. The compounding effect can be seen in how the two GDP lines began to pull away from each other and the projection to 2056 shows that that pulling away will continue as long as South Africa’s rate of economic growth remains in the doldrums.

The chart is very good at showing the extreme consequences that attach to prolonged eras of counterproductive policy that undermine investment and therefore economic growth. In an earlier analysis, The Common Sense has explored, for example, what South Africa’s unemployment rate would be today had its economy kept up with the growth rate of the world’s top emerging markets since 2008. The short answer is that the rate would be half of what it currently is. The consequences of the slow rate of economic growth can be read directly into the country’s politics. The African National Congress lost its majority chiefly because of the low rate of growth, and that low rate of growth is also responsible for South Africa’s higher rates of protest action and xenophobic tension.