Unfortunately, despite evidence showing that the economy almost tripled in size over the past two decades and inequality worsened, pundits, business leaders and policy makers, including Ms. Zille’s party, continue to insist that growth heals all. It just needs to be made more inclusive, they say.

The solution, they say, lies in deregulating the labor market to get people into jobs — regardless of whether those jobs are secure or allow people to live with basic dignity — and relaxing exchange controls to give South African capital greater global mobility, because it will all trickle down to the poor in the end.

They are wrong. The solutions they propose have been tried elsewhere and have failed. But such arguments are particularly infuriating because they relegate to a side show the goal of remedying the racial and economic inequality created by colonialism and apartheid — those same forces that pushed Ms. Boltney and millions of others to the city’s periphery — out of sight.

Since its rebirth, South Africa’s has had in place the moral and constitutional basis for ending inequality and poverty in the most direct and equitable manner possible: redistributing wealth and income from the rich minority to the poor majority.

But, instead of pressing ahead with this, the country’s leaders succumbed to a false global doctrine that — using the World Economic Forum’s archaic assessments of competitiveness — views the basic human rights protections contained in South Africa’s Constitution and labor regulations as factors that reduce the efficiency of markets. Such egalitarian laws, in this view, prevent the country from competing for foreign direct investment with countries like India and Indonesia, which do not have the same progressive founding ethos of social justice and human dignity.

Rather than acting as champions for the global human rights agenda, South African leaders across the political spectrum keep parroting the false doctrine of growth, deregulation and jobs at whatever cost.

An unseasonal downpour ended the protest in Cape Town. In most South African cultures, rain is considered a blessing. However, after a particularly stormy winter that washed away many homes, the downpour that broke up the march likely reminded the protesters of more peril they face if they do not return to the streets to remind leaders and the public that the present-day structure of South African society is not what many in the anti-apartheid movement bled and died for.