What do rolling blackouts, public disorder, and impending societal collapse in South Africa, have to do with the contemporary preoccupations of cosmopolitan Westerners?

At first glance, the comparison is a little perplexing. But the strife and chaos descending today upon Africa’s 5th largest country has its antecedents in the very same game the West’s business and governmental elites are playing today with unfettered enthusiasm.

In 1990, South Africa had the African continent’s largest economy.