English-speaking South Africans had participated in the heavy discrimination that preceded apartheid, and tacitly supported the legislation while paying lip service to opposing the laws. By so doing apartheid managed to create a system in which black people were pushed to the margins of their land through the imposition of the Natives Land Act, 1913. In result; many blacks are unskilled, illiterate, and have low living standards. Their schooling system, the Bantu languages education, was based on the notion that black people cannot progress fast enough in scientific subjects due to lower intellectual skills, and has resulted in many being excluded from work requiring skill. Volkscapitalisme Under the Nationalist Party, the country embarked upon a 'dirigiste' economic expansion involving the creation of several state-owned enterprises or 'parastatals' as they were called, including Iscor (steel), Sasol (synthetic fuel), Eskom (electricity), and later Transnet (rail) and Telkom (telecommunications). These grew in tandom with party-controlled entities such as Volkskas (banking), Sanlam (insurance) and Naspers (media). Business support for apartheid With the support of foreign capital, the mines and the mining finance houses, largely dominated by English-speaking South Africans, prospered under the system of apartheid and shunned outright opposition. In return for the continued monopsony of labour purchase for the mines that kept wages low and outlawed trade unions, the English-speaking mining companies tolerated job reservation that prevented blacks from developing skills. Thousands of foreign businesses from the United Kingdom, West Germany, and the United States opened firms in South Africa to exploit the lower wages of nonwhite workers. This is debated, however, as policies to restrict labour supply to whites only resulted in higher miner wages than under a system of equal employment. Over time the mining companies introduced changes to lower their costs but the alliance with the government continued. White trade unionism was allowed but there were no black trade unions until the 1970s. Sanctions The imposition of international sanctions on the country began economic pressure that saw the unravelling of apartheid. There were oil sanctions but South Africa continued to be able to buy oil on international markets and developed technology that allowed the conversion of coal into oil. A small gas field was discovered off the coast of the Cape. But the most damaging isolation was the denial of investment funds and the boycott of South African investments particularly by influential universities and foundations in the United States. These