South Africa is one of the most xenophobic societies in the world.

For the past few weeks, anti-immigrant South Africans have been holding protests, and some have gone door to door, demanding that any illegal immigrants on the premises be deported.

When I related these facts to some friends in San Francisco, they looked at each other and asked me: How is that any different from what is happening here?

The answer: American border enforcement, unlike South African vigilantism, reinforces the rule of law.

The US has immigration laws. It is completely within the power and capability of the federal government to enforce them.

One party (the Democrats) has chosen not to enforce them, hoping to reap future political gains if migrants become citizens.

The other party (the Republicans) is split, with a business constituency that favors open borders for cheap labor, and a border security faction that wants laws enforced.

The border security faction was marginalized for many years, but is now — against all odds — in charge of the country, through the presidency of Donald Trump. Trump is enforcing laws on the books, often in the face of strident opposition.

But note what is not happening: American citizens are not taking the law into their own hands.

Even at the height of the Minuteman Project, a volunteer organization founded in 2004 as an “neighborhood watch” for immigration, the most civilians did was station observers at the southern border.

South Africa has similar migration problems. For decades, it had a closed northern border. The closure went both ways: apartheid South Africa was (justifiably) a pariah, and few African states wanted anything to do with it.

But after 1994, the exiled opposition came back, and the new government relaxed the border controls. Suddenly, there was an influx of migrants — and no wonder: South Africa was (and remains) sub-Saharan Africa’s richest nation.

Yet at the same time, there was a massive crime wave in South Africa, one that has continued to this day. Much of the crime was homegrown, but a significant portion was tied to foreign syndicates.

The new South African government failed to rise to the challenge. The once-feared police, which had specialized in enforcing racial segregation, was not up to the everyday task of fighting crime.

And the ruling party, the African National Congress, which had almost mythological status due to its fight against apartheid, succumbed to the temptations of power. It became corrupt, and allowed the criminal underworld to penetrate the highest levels of policing and policymaking.

Ordinary South Africans were, and remain, frustrated with this situation. But they also have no faith in law enforcement. So vigilantism is becoming common, especially in poor communities.

That is partly why black South Africans have carried out mob violence against black African foreigners.

In addition, centuries of racial discrimination have trained South Africans — including, tragically and ironically, black South Africans — to think in terms of stereotypes, and to appeal to group identity in competing for resources. 

But there is an additional factor that makes xenophobia a persistent problem. It is the habit that South Africans have developed — thinking of economics as a zero-sum game.

If someone has wealth, they are seen as having taken it from someone else, no matter how they actually acquired it. If immigrants have jobs or businesses, they are seen as having taken something from South Africans, even if the latter did no work and risked no capital.

This kind of zero-sum thinking is not confined to Third World societies. It is partly a western import. It is the heart of Marxism — which is practiced, more fashionably, as “democratic socialism” today.

Before Graham Platner crashed out of the Senate race in Maine, Democrats cheered when he said that the world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk, should also be the last. Platner’s allies are busy pushing a “billionaire tax” that, if adopted, would destroy wealth in California.

At the core of it all is the primitive force of envy, as old as Cain and Abel. Americans are no different than other human beings, but our culture embraces what Alexis de Tocqueville once described as “self-interest properly understood.” This is the idea that individuals can help their communities by excelling in their chosen path.

Your success enriches me — and mine, you. This is the opposite of socialism. It is something South Africa’s post-apartheid regime does not understand.

So the xenophobia we are witnessing in South Africa, while primitive, is not unfamiliar. It is what happened, in living memory, in Europe, when nationalism combined with socialism.

Thank God America has a president who is committed to enforcing immigration laws and protecting our border. Thank God Americans are the most tolerant people in the world.

And thank God there are still enough of us who realize that economic freedom is far more humane than socialism can ever be.

Joel Pollak is the Opinion editor of the California Post.