In an interview in 2000, the eminent South African historian Martin Legassick argued that ‘ … the whole issue of class is completely relevant. The main issues in South Africa at the moment are being fought over within the Tripartite Alliance’ (2002: 124). He went on to bemoan the growing marginalisation of class analysis in South African historiography. It is well known that there has been a shift away from what can be loosely called the ‘political economy tradition’ in historical writing – a glance through the contents pages of South African Historical Journal volumes over the past few years reveals hardly any articles at all written in that tradition. The reasons for this shift have often been stated. As Geoff Eley has put it: ‘“Materialist” explanations based primarily on the economy and social structure now seemed to oversimplify the complexities of human action. Previously attractive structuralisms now seemed “reductionist” or “reductive” in their logic and effects’ (2008: 316-17).

The purpose of this chapter is not to decry the fresh lines of inquiry opened up in the past two decades such as gender, popular culture, belief systems, memory, and representations of the past but, rather, to lament the seemingly overhasty sidelining of the political economy tradition. It is possible to utilise class analysis without being reductionist, determinist or essentialist. I share Daryl Glaser's view that:

Materialist analysis, it can be argued, has a particular salience in these times when corporate power is greater than ever in much of the world, given the growing corporate control over the mainstream media and the capacity of corporations to influence electoral politics through the funding of political parties and candidates.