Capitalism & Apartheid

Capitalism & Apartheid

1. establishment of apartheid

   • British colonial segregation continuities (Christopher, 1983)
     • Native Land Acts
   • apartheid proper: National Party 1948
     • legalised and institutionalised race discrimination and segregation in SA introduced from 1948 onwards
       • Group Areas Acts of 1950 and 1966
       • Population Registration of 1950
     • ethnic mobilization of Afrikaners
       • white workers and farmers fear of Oorstrooming 'overrunning of the cities'; undercutting of wages
         • electoral platform
     • homelands for blacks; 'parallel development' (1970) for coloureds and Indians
       • 1984 'Own Affairs'; belated exercise in co-option
       • 'petty apartheid': transport, post offices, benches, toilets, beaches
         • ideological; inefficient but cost reduced by passing Reservation of Seperate Amenities Act in 1953 (separate not =)
   • Native Laws Amendment 1952
     • reinforced existing controls on labour movement; permits required
   • 'friction theory'
     • assumes physical means to spiritual goal (Paton)
   • attempt to maintain white political and economic power in 'legitimate' way; not just based on ideas of racial superiority

2. liberal vs. Marxist critiques

   • presented as triumph of the frontier over economic rationality (Legassick, 1980) - was it?
     • Bantustan education
       • Edgar Brookes (1968): 'the only education system in the world designed to restrict the productivity of its pupils'
     • changing economic base
       • mining to manufacture
       • manufacture and service sector became more skill and capital intensive - increasingly demand a free and mobile labour force
     • increasingly saturated domestic market
     • exports were rendered uncompetitive by protectionism (Lemon & Gibb, 2002)
       • 1982 - poss highest subsidies for decentralisation in the world
     • job reservation
       • artificially high wages and undeserved job security for whites
       • few incentives for blacks to work hard
     • state interference in labour productivity outweighed any benefits of reduced labor costs (Natrass, 1991)
       • unemployment rose consistently under apartheid from the mid 1960s due to declining absorption capacity of formal sector (Rogerson, 1995)
     • Moll (1991): manufacturing exports fell steadily from 1955 to 1985 explained by apartheid super structure
       • seriously inefficient use of black workers
     • Fine & Rustomjee (1996): manufacturing sector in prolonged state of stagnation, dependent on MEC core
     • direct costs: internal and external security; sanctions
       • disinvestment, loss of potential interest, refusal of the banks to lend
       • external more expensive following Portuguese revolution in 1974
   • O'Meera (1983): 'NP gov after 1948 secured the political conditions for rapid accumulation by all capital'
     • ANC - communist leanings - very broad way in which apartheid maintained capitalist state albeit one that interfered with the normal process of capitalist accumulation
     • migrant labour system: intensified exploitation of black workers
       • migrant workers made up 98% of the mine labour force
       • mining wages in 1970 had not changed in real terms since 1911 (Wilson, 1972)
       • reserve production enabled employers to force down wages (Wolpe, 1972)
         • reserve production a myth (Lansdown Commission 1943)
           • labor of women and children req for reproduction of labor force
       • Chamber of Mines opposed rigidifying labour force helped to maintain supplies of labour
         • BUT req that miners be 'repatriated' hindered recruitment from local area
           • transport subsidies needed to bring in black workers from periphery; KwaNdbele where subsidy to Putco bus company was higher than entire GDP of homeland (Lelyveld, 1987)
     • mining >> manufacture
       • domestic balck working in mines fell from 1962 peak of 157,000 to 86,500 in 1971 (Lemon, 1987)
       • more dependent on foreign labour in mines
     • restricting geographical distribution of labour and occupational distribution through job reservation >> violated one of the central principles of captialism
       • interfering with the market