chadlingard And at the same time if we see the complex systems that operate independent and in spite of government barriers, I feel a bit more at ease.
As my name suggests, I'm a centrist. And yet I would much rather fall on the side of limited government and free markets. I really do. I'm saying this as I want you to know where I'm standing. I have more respect for the libertarians than the socialists, the (American) conservatives than the liberals.
I think the mistake you made, and libertarian types of people make (is the ZACP libertarian?), is that they avoid politics. I agree that internationally unrestricted markets would, in the long term (and that's part of the problem), help uplift more people. My issue that politics is a thing. The Chinese, for example, don't have a libertarian view of the world. Neither does Russia. Or even the United States, as much as I like them. If you open your markets to these countries, then you give them a lot of influence. China won't be like "Hey, economics is all there is". They will use that influence if you don't kowtow to them.
Let me give a recent example. Do you know Huawei? That smartphone brand. I have one of those. America recently arrested their CEO and is advocating strongly against Huawei in the United States. Why? Because the Chinese government domestically has the right to request information from Chinese businesses. TApple is not forced to handover info to the FBI, Huawei, however, can be forced to hand out information they collected from people in the United States. And even South Africa. So there is a danger for America to think "hey, Huawei routers and phones are cheaper, so let's base all our technologically advanced businesses and military matters on their products"... only for the Chinese to steal technological secrets and military plans.
Do you see the problem? The political matters of China puts the political issues of America at risk, even if at face value both benefit economically: China gets money from exporting products, and America saves money to buy them. Strong international free-markets presume that every country prioritizes economics over politics and security. That we would like that to be the case doesn't mean it is the case.
Basically, there are rules of the international trading game. If the one person cheats then it would be foolish to act as though he doesn't. That doesn't mean you should cheat, just that you should take precautions that might go beyond the rules to limit the impact of the cheater. If you ignore him the game itself will be lost. If you join him it is lost as well. The best option is to compromise between the rules and the reality. International trading regimes, to survive, require this
I'm not saying that we shouldn't trade internationally. I'm just saying that there are legitimate occasions where we should prioritise our security and political matters over the economy. I know it sounds dangerous, but with trusted elected officials with expertise on both economics and politics this can be done. The problem in South Africa is that they don't care about economics, and they prioritize their political goals over economics just so they can personally benefit from staying in power.
I see what you're saying on the constitution. If the constitution doesn't have clauses for amendments, then you're right, it cannot be changed even if the entire parliament votes for it. I don't know about this so I'll grant you the point. Yet I think constitutions do need these clauses. We are not perfect and some things do change in time. I think the problem is the threshold for changing it in our country is too low. To change the bill of rights for example would require 3/4 and not 2/3 like the rest of the constitution. I think both should be at like 4/5 or even higher. But to change the threshold would itself mean amending the constitution. So again we have the problem of what we would like and reality.
Edit: Just one more thing. I scanned through your discussion with EADC here when I thought about something. Last year I had to do a book review for an assignment. The book is Why Nations Fail. They make a very good case for the importance that political institutions need to be liberal for economic markets to be free. And the role the politics has in ensuring the economic institutions remain liberal. You might want to check it out. I bought it on Google Play books, but I saw it in Brooklyn Mall's Exclusive Books recently as well.
https://www.takealot.com/why-nations-fail/PLID35981781