> Have they ever tried to emigrate? And if yes, why are they still there?
Because, while crime is high, and power is intermittent, it is not bad enough to make me give up my 700sqm house on a 2000sqm plot in a (somewhat safe) suburb close to everything, to live elsewhere in about a quarter of the space.
Every time I look at emigrating I face a large drop in my standard of living if am in a similar role in any high-paying area in the US or UK.
> Genuinely curious, what do you need a 700sqm house for? Do you have a very large family, and/or hobbies that require a lot of space?
Entertaining guests, large extended family, having enough space for both a pool table and a ping-pong table indoors, nice to have dedicated study (came in handy during pandemic), bedrooms are very generous so get used for more than sleeping (e.g. MiL's b/room has all her hobbies in it, jigsaw tables, crafts, etc).
People watch TV and kids play games, and they never disturb each other.
Large space is a component of standard of living; when I talk to people who've never lived in a large space, they can't imagine how their life would be improved by a large space.
Asking people "Why do you need a large house?" is like asking people "why do you need an SUV?[1]"
[1] The SUV is, IIRC, the most popular class of car sold in many countries (excluding commercial vehicles). People like nice things. I like nice houses.
In countries like the US that is generally not something many software engineers can afford. In South Africa, as an engineer that is more affordable and more seem to have them from what I've seen.
It's pretty common among middle or upper-middle class software engineers, at least based on the number of my coworkers who employ such services. Biweekly cleaning and gardening might run you $100 a week, or significantly less if you can cut out the middleman by hiring a cleaner directly instead of going through an agency (they can charge $40+ an hour and often pay their illegal immigrant employees under $15).
The average domestic worker in South Africa makes $16 a day and a little bit more for gardening. The domestic will come and clean the house, wash your clothes, iron etc. and put in a full days worth of work. The gardener will spend a full day weeding, mowing etc. etc..
You will not get anything close to that for $100 a week in the US even with an illegal immigrant.
Sure, but the median software engineer in South Africa is making around $20k USD (https://www.payscale.com/research/ZA/Job=Software_Engineer/S...) compared to around $90k in the US. Multiply that $16 by 4.5 and you're at $72, or $9/hour for a full day of work. Do a comparison based on percentage of salary, and the difference is smaller than you would think. It just seems ridiculously cheap in nominal terms.
I'm not criticizing you. It's just part of the difference in standard of living. In the US, only the rich can afford a domestic worker, because it would cost up-words of $200 a day. In South Africa it is a fraction of that cost even if you are paying above market rates.
What is a domestic servant? Is the guy delivering my food a domestic servant? The guy driving me around in a Uber? How is that different from the guy mowing your lawn?
> A civil society doesn't let its income gaps get large enough that the idea of domestic servants makes sense.
Well then the masses at the bottom of the income gap should start voting for someone other than who they've been voting for, for the last 30 years.
You can't blame the higher-income people for this - they have been trying to change the government by voting for someone else, but the the low-income people you are feeling so sorry for refuse to vote otherwise.
The "civil" society you seek can't happen while the masses are still voting the same corrupt government into power in every single election.
The poor masses have voted opposition parties in at municipal level a few times now. It's just a matter of time before the ANC's vote share drops below 50%. The real question is where those votes are going to go instead.
The Democratic Alliance looked like it was going to pick up the votes of disaffected black voters, but instead it seems like its leadership decided to pay more attention to Western culture wars (Helen Zille going on about "wokeness" etc) and to protect its right flank from being eroded by Afrikaner nationalists after the 2019 election, rather than courting the centre.
Cyril Ramaphosa's personal popularity helped the ANC in 2019, but it was also used by the DA as an opportunity to shaft Mmusi Maimane, who could have been a viable potential leader in SA.
Can't blame the voters if the politicians leave them with a dearth of choice.
You can only blame the voters if the politicians leave them with a dearth of choice. If a society can't produce a single reasonable leader it's usually no coincidence. Cultural values matter and some societies are inherently more corrupt (e.g. Arab and African societies, as can be seen by the constant stream of corrupt leaders they produce)
Because, while crime is high, and power is intermittent, it is not bad enough to make me give up my 700sqm house on a 2000sqm plot in a (somewhat safe) suburb close to everything, to live elsewhere in about a quarter of the space.
Every time I look at emigrating I face a large drop in my standard of living if am in a similar role in any high-paying area in the US or UK.