Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-22T21:54:50.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Post-Apartheid South Africa: Constraints on Socialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Roger J. Southall
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Politics, University of Leicester

Extract

Few observers reckon that the white citadel will fall overnight, yet the days of racial minority rule in South Africa are now widely assumed to be running out. But the future can rarely be tamed in advance, and many of the more optimistic scenarios and hopes concerning a transition to a non-racial form of state may well prove to be hopelessly misplaced. Even so, to the extent that it is considered that history is now finally on the move, debate about the nature of opportunities available to, and constraints upon a post-apartheid state becomes not only more legitimate but more urgent. The ambition of this article is to provide a framework for consideration of whether a non-racial South Africa could or will be socialist.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Cobbett, William, Glaser, Daryl, Hindson, Douglas, and Swilling, Mark, ‘South Africa's Regional Political Economy: a critical analysis of reform strategy in the 1980s’, in South African Review III (Johannesburg, 1986), pp. 137–68.Google Scholar

1 Cohen, Robin, Endgame in South Africa? (London and Paris, 1986).Google Scholar

2 Ibid. pp. 82–3.

3 Adam, Heribert and Moodley, Kogila, South Africa without Apartheid: dismantling racial domination (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1986).Google Scholar

4 Johnson, R. W., How Long Will South Africa Survive? (London, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

1 Adam, Heribert, Modernising Racial Domination: the dynamics of South African politics (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1971), p. 156.Google Scholar

2 See Lipton, Merle, Capitalism and Apartheid: South Africa, 1910–84 (London, 1985), p. 3, for four possible relationships: capitalists do not want apartheid and have/do not have the power to get rid of it; capitalists want apartheid and have/do not have the power to retain it. Those critics who identify apartheid as the specifically South African form of capitalism are fixated by its functionality without considering its dysfunctionality for at least some capitalists over time – or else their definition of apartheid becomes so broad that it can incorporate all foreseeable shifts in capitalist strategy and practice.Google Scholar

3 Gordimer, Nadine, ‘Living in the Interregnum’, in New York Review of Books, 20 January 1983.Google Scholar

4 Mbeki, Thabo, ‘The Fatton Thesis: a rejoinder’, in Canadian Journal of African Studies (Ottawa), 18, 3, 1984, p. 612.Google Scholar

1 Dunn, John, The Politics of Socialism: an essay in political theory (Cambridge, 1984), p. 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Gay, Peter, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's challenge to Marx (New York, 1952), p. ix.Google Scholar

1 Dunn, , op. cit. p. 22.Google Scholar

2 Astrow, André, Zimbabwe: a revolution that lost its way? (London, 1983), p. 216.Google Scholar

1 If, in fact, there is no ‘revolution’ — and no government of an advanced industrial state (which the S.A.C.P. claims ‘White South Africa’ to be) has yet been overthrown by a popular revolution from below – it suggests the need for some clarification of what ‘betrayal’ might mean.

2 White, Gordon, ‘Revolutionary Socialist Development in the Third World: an overview’, in White, , Murray, Robin, and White, Christine (eds.), Revolutionary Socialist Development in the Third World (Brighton, 1983), pp. 134.Google Scholar

3 The only explicit treatment of South Africa as a first- and third-world hybrid is to be found in The Buthelezi Commission: the requirements for stability and development in Kwazulu and Natal (Durban, 1980), Vols. I and II.Google Scholar However, the approach of the A.S.C.P. that South Africa is a combination of a white advanced capitalist state and a non-white internal colony is, in this regard, not so very different. See ‘The Road to South African Freedom’, in African Communists Speak (Moscow, 1970).Google Scholar

1 Lewis, Dave, ‘Capital, Trade Unions and the National Liberation Struggle’, in South African Labour Bulletin (Durban), II, 4, 1986, p. 39.Google Scholar

2 Adam, and Moodley, , op. cit. p. 188.Google Scholar

3 Callanicos, Alex, ‘Marxism and Revolution in South Africa’, in International Socialism (London), 2, 31, 1986, pp. 366.Google Scholar

1 White, , op. cit. p. 3.Google Scholar

2 Petras, James, ‘Towards a Theory of Twentieth Century Socialist Revolutions’, in Journal of Contemporary Asia (Stockholm), VIII, 2, 1978, p. 172. my emphasis.Google Scholar

3 The claim should be noted that black unions in South Africa are not only eschewing the professional and bureaucratic model that characterises labour relations in advanced industrialised countries in favour of a more participatory social movement unionism, but that they have begun to play, in alliance with students and community groups, ‘a leading role beyond the workplace in the struggle for democracy and political rights in society at large’. See Webster, Eddie, ‘The Goals of Management and Labour – Industrial Relations in a Post-Apartheid Economy’, Conference on the Southern African Economy after Apartheid, University of York, 29 September–2 October 1986. Tendentially, this may perhaps provide a basis for arguing that South Africa may provide the first example of a broadly based, proletarian-based socialist revolution in history.Google Scholar

4 Adam, and Moodley, , op. cit. p. 187.Google Scholar

5 Ibid. p. 263.

1 White, , op. cit. p. 4.Google Scholar

2 Erwin, Alec, ‘The Question of Unity in the Struggle’, in South African Labour Bulletin, II, 1, 1985, p. 52.Google Scholar

3 Adam, and Moodley, , op. cit. p. 199.Google Scholar

4 Erwin, , loc. cit. pp. 53–4.Google Scholar

5 Ibid. pp. 68–9.

1 Cf. Jameson, K. P. and Wilber, C. K., ‘Socialism and Development: editors' introduction’, in World Development (Oxford), 9, 1981, pp. 910.Google Scholar According to White, op. cit. p. 10: they ‘concluded that there has been a rough comparability in (per capita) growth rates between 1960 and 1974, with thirteen “Marxian socialist” countries (apparently including eastern Europe) growing at 3·68 per cent p.a. and non-socialist Third World countries do better in terms of economic equality and provision for basic human needs, notably health and education. One could also add that socialist countries seem to have tackled the problems of unemployment and inflation more successfully than their capitalist counterparts. For Jameson and Wilber, the main black mark was the relative absence of “human rights”, especially but not exclusively when defined in conventional liberal terms.’

1 Ibid. pp. 11–13.

2 Ibid. p. 1.

1 Innes, Duncan, ‘Monopoly Capitalism in South Africa’, in South African Review I (Johannesburg, 1983), p. 178.Google Scholar

2 Davies, Robert, ‘Nationalisation, Socialisation and the Freedom Charter’, in South African Labour Bulletin, 12, 2, 1987, pp. 85106.Google Scholar

1 Girvan, Norman, Corporate Imperialism: conflict and expropriation. Transnational Corporations and Economic Nationalism in the Third World (New York and London, 1976).Google Scholar

2 Davies, , loc. cit. p. 100.Google Scholar

1 Innes, Duncan, Anglo-American and the Rise of Modern South Africa (New York and London, 1984), pp. 235–6.Google Scholar

1 Robbins, Peter, ‘The South African Mining Industry after Apartheid’, Conference on the Southern African Economy after Aparthied, University of York, 29 September–2 October 1986.Google Scholar

2 Davies, , loc. cit.Google Scholar

3 Adam, and Moodley, , op. cit. p. 256.Google Scholar

1 White, , op. cit. p. 28.Google Scholar

2 Adam, and Moodley, , op. cit. p. 257; and Cohen, op. cit. p. 94.Google Scholar

1 Dunn, , op. cit. p. 22.Google Scholar

2 Saul, John, ‘Ideology in Africa: decomposition and recomposition’, in Carter, Gwendolen and Patrick, O'Meara (eds.), African Independence: the first twenty-five years (Bloomington, 1985), pp. 300–29.Google Scholar

1 Note that Oliver Tambo, Acting President of the A.N.C., appealing to whites during the course of the 1987 whites-only election campaign, committed the A.N.C. to a multi-party democracy, as well as to the freedoms of assembly, association, speech, and the press. See The Independent (London), 9 01 1987.Google ScholarPubMed

2 Lewis, , loc. cit. p. 37.Google Scholar

3 White, , op. cit. p. 19.Google Scholar

1 Batt, Judy, Economic Reform and Political Change in Eastern Europe: a comparison of the Czechoslovak and Hungarian experiences (London, 1987, forthcoming).Google Scholar

1 Gann, L. H. and Duignan, Peter, South Africa – War, Revolution or Peace? (Stanford, 1978), p. 58.Google Scholar

2 Dunn, , op. cit. p. 46.Google Scholar

3 White, , op. cit. pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

1 Gorz, André, Socialism and Revolution (London, 1975), pp. 104–5.Google Scholar

1 According to Adam and Moodley, op. cit. p. 173: ‘The number of Blacks in formal-sector employment as a percentage of the labor force is calculated to drop from 61·5 per cent in 1980 to 52·8 per cent in 1990, 45·1 per cent in 2000, and 39·3 per cent in 2010.’

2 Ibid. p. 172.

3 Forster, Joe, ‘The Workers' Struggle – Where Does FOSATU Stand?’, in South African Labour Bulletin, 7, 8, 1982, p. 77.Google Scholar

4 Ibid. p. 70.

1 Maree, Johan, ‘The Past, Present and Potential Role of the Democratic Trade Union Movement in South Africa’, Conference on the Southern African Economy after Apartheid, University of York, 29 September–2 October 1986.Google Scholar

2 Webster, , op. cit.Google Scholar

3 Selbourne, David, Against Socialist Illusion: a radical argument (London, 1984), p. 7.Google Scholar

1 Dunn, , op. cit. pp. 64–5.Google Scholar

1 Lane, David, The Socialist Industrial State: towards a political sociology of state socialism (London, 1976), p. 178.Google Scholar

1 Dunn, , op. cit. p. 81.Google Scholar

2 Gordimer, , op. cit.Google Scholar

1 Amin, Samir, ‘The Future of South Africa’, in Journal of Southern African Affairs (Maryland), 2, 3, 1977, pp. 355–70.Google Scholar