Although South Africa’s economy is rigidly divided, Acemoglu and Robinson argue that Lewis’s theory of the dual economy misidentifies the cause of South Africa’s inequality. The two sectors, the authors argue, aren’t actually independent, and the traditional sector doesn’t function the way South Africa’s entire economy did before the modern sector was created. Instead, the modern and traditional sectors are two sides of the same extractive institution. The modern sector consists of the elites who benefit by extracting wealth from the masses in the traditional sector. As a result, these elites have strong incentives to
prevent people from moving into the modern sector, and anyone who wants to do so will have to win a difficult political fight against elites. Thus, politics play an extremely important role when it comes to reducing inequality and spurring growth—an idea Lewis overlooks by focusing on economic concerns.