Amid a fourth industrial revolution centred on the technological advances being made by some jeans-and-sneakers-wearing Silicon Valley engineer, South Africa's preoccupation with the fate of antiquated mining giants such as Anglo American often seems so last century. Critics argue that mining and its affiliated industries account for only 7% of the country's gross domestic product - so why all the bother about where or in whose hands Anglo or any other miner and its assets finally end up? It's a fair enough point - the high-skilled services sector has been an area of higher growth, especially in the past decade. But while our energies and focus are being shifted from the blasting and drilling activities of miners that are no longer the centre of job creation, we should not lose sight of their fundamental importance to South Africa's business case. Some years ago - in fairness, when the commodity supercycle was still with us - our mineral wealth was calculated at about $2-trillion. F...
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