"Lou Dobbs and the History of Apartheid"

Lou Dobbs' recent appearance with Bill Moyers on the Moyers PBS show "Now" made for fascinating television. Dobbs charges that big businesses are "traitors," who conspire to cut their costs of production by "off-shoring American jobs." Dobbs believes that American workers, who are paid $25 an hour, should not be required to compete with Indian workers, who are paid merely "cents."

The problem is that Dobbs' job protectionism scheme has been tried before. Apartheid South Africa's so-called "civilized labor policy" was based on a similar principle. It proved to be an unambiguous failure.

After gold was found in South Africa's Transvaal province in 1873, mining became the country's chief industry. South African capitalists soon recognized that blacks could do many of the jobs previously done by whites and for much less money. In an efficiency drive, they fired whites and hired blacks instead. Between 1911 and 1922, the number of white miners decreased from 24,746 to 14,207.

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