IT’S A familiar sight in many parts of Africa: the checkpoint, often just a broken chair at the end of a string across the road that can barely be seen. The ragged soldier manning it may be unarmed, but peril awaits those who refuse what little payment he demands — a dollar note or a tin of bully beef. People are killed at these informal tax-collection stations.This is ambush economics. Invariably, it’s too late to turn around by the time you spot the roadblock. But this is not the preserve of predatory militias. It is present in supermarkets and on the most sophisticated parts of the internet, where it can be called ambush capitalism.When Fifa’s Soccer World Cup carnival came to SA in 2010, the term "ambush marketing" entered the national conversation. More than 30 Dutch women clad in orange dresses were expelled from Soccer City and threatened with legal action, accused of advertising the brewery Bavaria, not one of the official sponsors.But ambush marketing turned out to be a won...
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