After Apartheid: The Working-Class of South Africa, Still Not Free

Richard S. Dunn – January 15, 2023

Twenty-eight years after the defeat of Apartheid in South Africa, and the subsequent leadership by a Black Administration, the working class and the poor are still not free, socio-economically. In order to understand this gross injustice, it must be seen from the standpoint of the basis for this catastrophe; South Africa is still under the control of private capital, white capital. The fundamental issues of land ownership; critical structural economic changes; the conflict between labor and capital; industries not being nationalized, a progressive working-class land redistribution program have not been resolved even with the defeat of Apartheid and Black majority rule. “If South Africa is an independent, decolonialized, democratic country under the control of its Black majority, then why is 93% of the land still owned by whites?” ask Dr. Motsoko Pheko, South African historian, author, and former member of Parliament.

The late Moses Kotane, General Secretary of the Communist Party of South Africa, and Treasurer General of the African National Congress (ANC), fully understood the relationship between capitalism and real Black Liberation way back in 1939. His thesis was that there could be no working-class victory without Black Liberation, and no Black Liberation without the destruction of capitalism in all its forms.

The African National Congress (ANC) Has Lost Its way

The African National Congress (ANC) held its national conference in mid-December of 2022, in which Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa was re-elected to lead the Party. South Africa is currently caught in the throes of several crises: high unemployment, the scarce availability of electricity especially in rural areas, and frequent electrical outages, xenophobia, a high crime rate, including gender-based violence against women and girls. Ramaphosa was facing calls from citizens for him to resign after an investigative report suggested that he may have broken anti-corruption laws. It is alleged that the President covered up the theft of millions of dollars from his private gaming farm and hid the money; he contends that he did report the theft, and that the money found in a sofa, was from the sale of buffaloes from his farm. Ramaphosa subsequently survived an impeachment hearing.

The decisive branches of the national economy such as finance, manufacturing, energy, and mining are still in the hands of the old Apartheid oligarchy. The Black ANC government have not made any significant changes to the ownership of the means of production, and the role of the State in post-Apartheid economics, which would benefit the working class of South Africa. Peoples Dispatch in an article by Vijay Prashad and Zoe Alexandra reported that the unemployment rate was 63.9% during the first quarter of 2022 for people between the ages of 15 to 24 years old.

Irvin Jim, General Secretary of South Africa’s largest Trade Union, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), speaking to Prashad and Alexander said “ a new program must seek economic power alongside political power. South Africa needs to take public ownership of these minerals and metals, develop the processing of these through industrialization, and provide the benefits to the marginalized, landless, and dispossessed South Africans, most of whom are Black.” The Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) Policy introduced by the ANC in 1996 left capital safe and continues to be in the hands of the “old guard.” The misguided and idiotic concept of “deracialization of the economy” is not only a  misnomer but a significant contributor to the plight that the poor and working class of South Africa are now experiencing.

Class and Race Still an Issue in South Africa

It appears that the ANC in its current composition and ideology, is oblivious to the interconnection between race and class, and that the resolution of the conflict between capital and labor involves the destruction of capitalism in all forms, and that the creation of a Black capitalist class does not solve the fundamental problem. If true liberation is to be achieved for the working-class of South Africa, it is fundamental that the mineral and other material wealth are returned to the rightful owners, the masses of the South African people. The only logical conclusion of this, is that the means of production must and have to be publicly owned, and the State must play a decisive role in this. For the ANC to protect and maintain the private ownership of the means of production, is a betrayal of the liberation struggle for which many ordinary South Africans have paid for with their lives.

The late South African revolutionary “Queen Mother” Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was clear as to the farce that the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Policy meant to the working class, she said: “Black economic empowerment is a joke. It was a white confidence measure made up of local white capitalists. They took malleable Blacks and made them partners, but those who had struggled and had given blood were left with nothing. They are still in shacks; no electricity, no sanitation, and no sign of an education.”

South Africa Must Decide – Capitalism or Socialism

What is even more critical in understanding the socio-economic transformation that is needed, is the importance and function of State power within the society. Private ownership of the productive means and the private accumulation of the wealth produced, gives the capitalists material and political power as the means by which they are able to influence and in many instances dictate Public Policy which operates in their interest. There is no realistic separation between economics and politics; the three-tier foundational pillars of capitalism which can be considered as economics, politics, and ideology, are all inter-related. It is the political system that enforces, protects, and provides the organizational tools to develop, protect and expand the rule and influence of capital. The State has to play a decisive role in the character and the overall structure of capitalist “cooperation” by securing control over domestic and foreign capital and ultimately in supplanting it. This is the only way the country can maintain and reinforce its independence and in the long run, consolidate the socio-economic path it chooses for the benefit of the working class.

Richard Dunn can be reached at: contact@makingitplain.net