Feudal America

What South Africa’s experience with state capture reveals – and does not reveal – about America today

The modern state has many enemies. Some want to loot it. Others want to shrink it. And a few may want to rule it like a fief.

Distinguishing clearly between these different threats is vital. South Africa’s recent past, marked by a political phenomenon widely known as ‘state capture’, provides one particularly stark example. But the United States today faces a different challenge, one that is, I will argue below, an older one. To conflate the two would obscure the nature of both problems and the solutions they demand.