What do the construction mafia, zama-zamas, March and March, vigilante organisations, the Trump administration, AfriForum, and the rise of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) have in common? They represent a spectrum of hardline actors whose influence rose in response to big business and the African National Congress (ANC) ignoring advice to reform policies that were crippling South Africa’s economy.

These hardliners’ objectives and methods differ greatly. Some operate lawfully and democratically, while others operate through intimidation, violence, or criminal markets. But what unites them is the political and economic environment in which they have gained influence.

For much of the past 30 years, the ANC and the leadership of organised business dismissed moderate warnings that South Africa’s foundational policies were suppressing investment, weakening institutions, promoting corruption, and excluding millions of people from the formal economy.

Four policies stand out.

The first is black economic empowerment (BEE). BEE placed an additional cost on capital entering South Africa, reducing the country’s competitiveness against other investment destinations. It also encouraged a corrupt relationship between political access and commercial ownership. Companies learnt that shares could be allocated to politically connected partners in exchange for regulatory protection, contracts, or influence. This provided a respectable language for arrangements that frequently produced little investment, innovation, or employment, while creating an entry point for state capture.

The second is employment equity. It normalised the idea that merit did not have to be the determining consideration when appointing people in the public or private sectors. The predictable result was institutional decline. Skilled people were excluded or encouraged to leave, while appointments increasingly served political interests and the protection of corrupt networks.

The third is green energy policy. South Africa’s largest corporations and the ANC adopted leftist European energy ambitions even as millions of black South Africans remained trapped in relative poverty. Coal stations were allowed to deteriorate without sufficient replacement capacity, while oil and gas deposits remained undeveloped.

The fourth is expropriation policy. The state began by expropriating mineral and water rights away from their private holders and has since extended the principle into healthcare, retirement savings, and other areas of private capital. The consequence has been persistent uncertainty about whether assets will remain under the control of the people and institutions that paid for them.

The ANC and big business worked closely together to normalise these destructive ideas by presenting them as virtuous and even good for society and the economy.

None of the problems that ensued will be reversed if that normalisation remains the case. Corruption will not be defeated while companies continue allocating ownership according to political value. State capacity will not recover while merit is treated as only one consideration among several when appointments are made. Industrial growth will remain weak without hydrocarbon energy. South Africa cannot restore its coal fleet and develop its oil and gas resources while treating net-zero commitments as important. Fixed investment will not recover while expropriating investments for less than their market value remains an option.

South Africans remained excluded from employment, property ownership, and the formal economy while the ANC and business defended the policies responsible for that. The public understood that and the consequences for the ANC can now be read in its collapsing electoral support, while the consequences for established business can be seen in the growth of illicit industries and markets.

People seek alternatives when formal institutions fail them. March and March and other community movements offer protection against the perceived consequences of uncontrolled immigration. Vigilante organisations provide security where the police are absent or distrusted. Illicit businesses provide employment and cheaper goods and services to people excluded from the formal economy. Zama-zamas extract minerals where the state and mining companies have abandoned control, while construction mafias exploit the weakness of law enforcement and the political allocation of contracts. AfriForum provides an activist institutional home to minorities experiencing state and big business neglect and hostility. The MKP offers disaffected ANC voters a harder nationalist alternative to a party they believe has failed them. The Trump administration is applying pressure from abroad over South Africa’s domestic racial policies, expropriation law, and alignment with anti-Western actors.

As they take hold and grow to win more public support these actors are increasingly discovering areas of shared interest. Networks are forming between them where they once operated separately, and their collective political influence will continue to grow as confidence in the ANC and established business continues to decline. Much of that may be constructive relative to the old ANC/big-business order, especially where community organisations provide security, defend property, create employment, or challenge destructive state policy, and thereby reduce the consequences of government failure. The risks are obvious too – although whether these could produce a worse result than the 1% economic growth rate, 30%+ unemployment rate, and state capture status quo that the ANC and big business collectively engineered is an open question.