Beneficiary of illegal-migration

Private Sector the primary beneficiary of Illegal-Migration
Nyiko Floyd Shivambu

A component which almost the whole of society has been inattentive to in the wake of the violent xenophobic and tribal attacks that happened in South Africa’s poverty stricken informal settlements and townships is the whole issue of the political economy of labour. Immigration into South Africa’s cities and economic centres is largely for socio-economic purposes. People from around the continent and poorer provinces migrate to areas with economic potential in search of better lives, jobs and economic opportunities. That is undeniably the major reason for inter and intra-migration into South African areas with economic potential.

In the 2005 State of the Nation Address, the President of the Republic Thabo Mbeki hinted on the possibility of reviewing labour laws to allow for more flexibility as the incumbent labour laws and regulations were too stringent for higher levels of growth. This perspective was pursued within the African National Congress (ANC) National General Council through a discussion document, which was fiercely rejected. The response of government leadership and those who preferred a two-tier labour system was quite worrying with the President suggesting that it is sad that the General Council of the ANC rejected the proposal of flexible labour as a catalyst of investments, growth and employment.

Almost all advices by the supposed International Think-Tanks, such as the Harvard Group, on South Africa’s economic planning sought to suggest that the country’s protective labour regime is not conducive for investments, and growth. This is located within government’s strange obsession with a supposition that economic growth is solely the panacea to all developmental challenges. So the need to make labour cheaper in South Africa has underpinned government’s approach to the economic growth and planning, yet without success due to strong opposition from the Progressive Labour movement in South Africa.

Now government’s lacklustre approach to illegal immigration could be squarely located within the relentless struggle to make labour cheaper and reducing the cost of doing big business for business. The extent at which South Africa’s mines, factories, farms, retailers, construction industries, and at some instances, public institutions benefit from cheap migrant-labour is quite substantial. How do you explain the possibility of approximately 3 million undocumented migrants in one country? That’s a size bigger than most of South Africa’s neighbouring countries such as Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho. The undocumented migrants are used as reserves for cheap labour in South Africa’s mines, factories, farms, retail stores, construction industries, etc. The two-tier labour system, which is favoured by the incumbent government, is in this context a reality as illegal migrant-labourers are not protected by the labour laws, including the prescriptions of minimum wages for mine and farm workers.

It appears from this observation that the primary beneficiary of illegal migrant labour is the private sector, as they utilise the almost free labour sold by migrant workers. The private sector, mainly the private security industry, mines, farms and construction is the primary beneficiary of illegal-migration. This is often at the expense of communities as illegal immigrants are not eligible to access the State delivered houses, healthcare, education, safety and security and so forth. What is worrying though is government’s response and reaction to the phenomenon of illegal and socio-economic migration. The regulation and monitoring by the country’s Labour Department over the reality of illegal-migrant labour is almost non-existent. The boarders are almost non-existent, whilst systems to address migration are ineffective. Government’s response to the attacks is on re-integration into mainly illegal communities, so that the cheap labour provided by mainly illegal immigrants is not disturbed. The puzzle of socio-economic migration into South Africa should be given a thorough thought by all stakeholders involved, not a knee-jerk response on re-integration.

SA Xenophobic?

Giving a Class perspective to the xenophobic uprisings!

Let's make some few observations concerning the current xenophobic uprisings and acts of crime. Almost always, high levels of poverty, inequality, starvation and unemployment are a cause of social instability. You'll remember government made this acknowledgment when the annual report of ASGISA was tabled in April 2008. Now with an objective existence of what is called lumpen proletariat, you will surely encounter these acts of violence with different forms of false-consciousness. The term lumpen proletariat is Marxist and refers to that section in society that is unemployed, often residents of informal settlement and engaged in criminal activities. The South African capitalist system and trajectory has produced a significant amount of these (lumpen proletariat), which is often amenable to narrow ethnic, xenophobic, superstitious and reactionary influences. This is the group which the IFP mobilised during the transitional period and led to many killings whilst influenced and funded by a third force.

This observation squarely explains the nature of the lumpen proletariat:
“[The lumpen proletariat] for the most part, do not have their hands directly on the forces of production, so they do not potentially have the sort of leverage against the bourgeoisie that the proletariat has. Industrial workers by withdrawing their labor can potentially force the bourgeoisie against the wall. The lumpen proletariat's main form of leverage, in contrast, lies in their capacity for social disruption”.

Those who are closely monitoring the situation will realise that the acts of xenophobic and ethic violence largely happens amongst the above defined group, and often in communities with high levels of poverty, starvation and unemployment. Now the consciousness imbued amongst this group is that the foreign nationals are responsible for the job losses and shortage of other basic needs such as housing, water, sanitation, electricity, etc, but fundamentally the main culprits in crime. In Soweto for instance, the acts, which are thus far not fatal, are happening in the informal parts of Bramfischer Ville, Leratong, Tshepisong, Slovoville, and not in Diepkloof Extension or Pimville Zone 6 Extension. There however is no third force in this instance, but some possible levels of spontaneity similar to the early 1990s village uprisings against those who were accused of “witch craft”.

The absence of SANCO in communities is also not very helpful, as it could possibly imbue community struggles with a sense of revolutionary consciousness and guide these to be genuine crime fighting units within communities.
What then do we do? Quite clearly this will need a systematic response from all stakeholders of society, which could include increased service delivery, mass education and literacy campaigns and generally bettering of people’s lives. With pockets of ethnic conflicts arising out of the current xenophobic attacks, our stability as a nation under construction could be sacrificed even more if the quality of people’s lives is left unchecked and unchanged. Now, diagnosing the current uprisings as purely xenophobic will be very wrong and pure idealism and could lead to wrong remedies and solutions…… On the 16th of May 2008, the President of the ANC said in his address at the University of Zululand that “It is important that we understand that nation building is not only about people’s attitudes towards one another, though that is important. We must understand that nation building requires that we tackle the material differences between our people. We cannot have a united nation when a significant section of our society remains in poverty, or do not have access to quality education, or still live without basic services like water or housing”.
Whilst the existence of people determines their consciousness, it equally does inform their false-consciousness.

GEAR Number What?

Should We Giya for GEAR?


Nyiko Floyd Shivambu, 1 November 2007

In Tsonga/Shangaan, the word Giya means dance in celebration. The former ANC President Thabo Mbeki called on all ANC members and all South Africans to indulge in the published Statistics South Africa Community Survey 2007 , which essentially illustrated through reliable statistics that ‘Today is Better Than Yesterday”, (ANC Today, 26 October 2007). The President celebrates the Community Survey 2007 findings that the livelihoods of South Africans have significantly improved, with more recorded access to housing, electricity, cellular phones, computers, Internet etc. These improvements, the President attribute, amongst other things, to the intervention of the Growth, Redistribution and Redistribution (GEAR) macro-economic strategy, which the Left forces in and outside the alliance deplored as a neo-liberal structural adjustment programme, whilst maintained as a continuation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme in government. With the release of StatsSA’s Community Survey 2007 and the proclamation by the President that the recorded progress is “Thanks to GEAR”, the question we ask below is: Should we join the President and Giya for GEAR?

Thinking that there is now a common and shared understanding in the broader South African revolutionary alliance that the adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) represented a strategic shift and a tactical mistake, the ANC President Thabo Mbeki’s “Today is Better than Yesterday” still argues that GEAR was correct and continuation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). This is raised amidst a strong and worrying suspicion on the President’s side that the progressive Left forces in the tripartite alliance are out to get the ANC and displace it as the leader of the National Democratic Revolution. Well, even this supposition is odd; as the ANC’s historical and scientific observation has always been that the working class is the leader of the NDR, whilst the ANC leads the Alliance. The Mafikeng Strategy and Tactics (adopted by the 50th and 51st National Conferences) of the ANC for instance notes that “South African capitalism gave birth to a collective of black workers whose class position and social existence placed it at the head of the struggle for freedom… by dint of its activism and organisation, this class won the respect of all the other motive forces as the leader of the NDR” (S&T, 1997 & 2002).

The President is still not persuaded that GEAR represented a radical rightward shift from ANC’s historical economic transformation perspectives and this largely for reasons he outlines in “Today is better than Yesterday”. Avoiding the risk of joining those who harp stringed instruments and beat drums in celebration of South Africa’s socio-economic challenges, we should not be frightened to observe (leaving space for counter-persuasion) that GEAR was a shift from the predominant, shared and common perspective on what should constitute economic transformation in South Africa as articulated in the RDP. In almost all instances, ANC social and economic transformation perspectives are premised on the Freedom Charter’s objectives and as a progressive pragmatic intervention, the guiding principle and practice upon seizure of political power in the early to mid-1990s emphasised on redistribution and reconstruction as a basis for economic growth. Certainly, we should celebrate the betterment of people’s lives as illustrated by the StatsSA Community Survey 2007, but this should not blind us from identifying and deploring the strategic mistakes made with the adoption of GEAR.

To historically locate the shift of GEAR from previous ANC economic transformation perspectives, we should distinguish some frequent concepts in the democratic movement’s economic transformation language, mainly ‘ownership by people as a whole’ and ‘nationalisation’. This difference is understood in the basic concepts of socialised ownership (transfer to the ownership of the people as a whole) and nationalised ownership (State ownership) of production means, and the Freedom Charter envisioned the former. Now, the first distinct shift which was reflected in the mid to late 1980s was around the propositions of the ANC’s Discussion Document on Economic Policy (DDEP), which committed to nationalisation vis-à-vis socialisation of ownership of the key means of production. Indeed, the DDEP committed to nationalisation, and further recommended re-nationalisation on public utilities and nationalisation in cases where “the balance of evidence suggests that it would be advantageous” (DDEP, 1990).

In his first public address after the release of political prisoners in 1990, Nelson Mandela said, “nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is ANC policy, and any change to this policy is inconceivable” (Nattrass, 1994). ANC policy, as guided by the Freedom Charter has not necessarily been nationalisation, but socialisation of the ownership of key production means, unless the State is positioned and generally accepted as the custodian of the people as a whole. The assertions of Nelson Mandela were possibly arising out of the reality that in the liberation movement, the concepts of nationalisation and socialisation of ownership (ownership by the people as a whole) are often used interchangeably. The DDEP further laid a firm basis for a growth through redistribution economic policy direction. This entailed that there is a firm commitment for “growth through redistribution in which redistribution acts a spur to growth and in which the fruits of growth are redistributed [in a sustainable and developmental cycle] to meet basic needs” (DDEP, 1990).

Post DDEP, economic transformation perspectives of the ANC were underpinned by the growth through redistribution commitment, underpinned by a relatively progressive commitment to prompt economic growth through redistribution of basic services to better the living conditions of majority of South Africans. This was strongly reflected and emphasised in the Ready to Govern, RDP and later the report of the Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG), commissioned by the ANC to explore and draft a possible macroeconomic strategy for a post apartheid South Africa. The RDP for instance illustrated that, “Growth, the measurable increase in the output of the modern industrial economy - is commonly seen as the priority that must precede development. Development is portrayed as a marginal effort of redistribution to areas of urban and rural poverty. In this view development is a deduction from growth. The RDP breaks decisively with this approach” (RDP, 2004: Clause 1.3.6).

The shift in economic transformation perspectives in the ANC began from the socialisation of ownership, to nationalisation, to growth through redistribution, and to redistribution through growth . The adoption of GEAR in 1996 heightened the latter aspect and was the most radical shift from the ANC historical economic perspective, and was in no way consistent with the Ready to Govern and RDP, as is supposed by the President’s “Today is Better than Yesterday” and in the ANC 2007 economic transformation discussion document. Whilst Ready to Govern and RDP committed to fiscal stability, they in no way propositioned that it should be the overriding principle, such that growth is no longer through redistribution, but redistribution through growth. This was a radical shift from the key and progressive economic transformation perspectives in the ANC, and it is unfortunate that GEAR was not sifted through robust discussions in the revolutionary alliance, but, reportedly, down-lifted as the grand economic intervention to reduce deficits and achieve fiscal stability.

The consistency from Ready to Govern and RDP to GEAR is justified through a clause in the two redistributive strategies, which committed to fiscal stability. Well, the RDP White Paper for instance stated verbatim that “the Government of National Unity draws on the following basic strategy to achieve its objectives: financial and monetary discipline in order to finance the RDP; reprioritisation of public sector activity; and facilitation of industrial restructuring” (RDP White Paper, 1994). Whilst fiscal stability was component of the RDP, it certainly was not an overriding principle, like it is in GEAR and economic planning post this macroeconomic strategy. Redistribution underpinned the RDP as an element to spur growth—whilst GEAR and, and to a greater extent ASGISA overly altered this strategic perspective to suppose that growth should be the only basis for redistribution. Perhaps the ideological elasticity of RDP White Paper accommodates GEAR, yet the principle foundation of RDP is no way similar to the practices of GEAR.

The 2007 ANC economic transformation discussion document makes an unsustainable and potentially apocalyptic assertion that “whilst the ANC had elaborated a clear strategic perspective on macro-economic policy, the details of our tactical positions were—correctly—left to those deployed in government, who had to respond to an evolving and complex environment” (ANC, 2007: paragraph 11). This is a subtle justification of an unsustainable phenomenon of government deployees altering strategic objectives and direction of the ANC in the name of tactical considerations. This reflects what the ANC Youth League identified in the 2007 Draft ANC Strategy and Tactics, that it “emphasises the role of government on the national democratic revolution as the main driver for change, and therefore misrepresent and undermine the centrality of the ANC as the leader of the NDR and the role of society at large in bringing social change”, (ANC YL, 2007).

Now GEAR, which according to the ANC Economic Transformation discussion document was correctly adopted by government deployees, overemphasises the centrality of fiscal stability in driving development, attracting investments and creating jobs. The fiscal stability and reduction of deficit is narrowly pursued through privatisation of State Owned Enterprises, under-sizing of the public service, commercialisation of the remaining SOEs, and outsourcing of what was understood as non-core functions in the public service. GEAR supposed that all these measures will attract investments, grow the economy, create jobs and reduce poverty. Instead of these hollow aspirations and expectations, GEAR led to loss of millions of jobs, and effectively deepened poverty, due to the reality that quality employment for majority of the people in South Africa is almost clinically linked to sustainable poverty reduction.

It is not a secret that whilst GEAR achieved some level of fiscal stability, it dismally failed to achieve its own strategic objectives—mainly economic growth levels, investments and creation of jobs. In 2001, the SACP Deputy General Secretary, Cde Jeremy Cronin observed, “While the fiscal restraint “fundamentals” have been overachieved, the flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) have been exceedingly disappointing, and growth has been sluggish, touching just over 3 percent in some years”, (Cronin, 2001). More disastrous, however, are the other socio-economic indicators. Overwhelming evidence shows that since 1994 the unemployed have increased in numbers; that the gap between those at the top and the bottom of society has widened; that impoverishment has increased; and that social problems have increased in scale, (Lagassick, 2006: 379).

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), recently observed that “at least between the years 1995 – 2000, for which there is adequate data—economic growth was associated with declining incomes across households at all income levels, but with the sharpest income declines occurring among the least well off” (Pollin et al, 2006: 17). In 2001, Cde Jeremy Cronin pointed to the fact that “Over one million workers have lost their jobs in the formal sector since 1994, whilst the inequality gap has widened to make South Africa one of the most unequal societies in world, together with Guatemala and Brazil”. Most severe out of this situation was the impoverishment of majority of the working class through retrenchments, as the rate of unemployment virtually doubled between 1995 and 2002. The official unemployment rate virtually doubled from 15.9% in 1995 to 30.5 % in 2002, while the expanded rate of unemployment rose from 29.4% in 1995 to 42.5% in 2002, (DBSA, 2005). The unemployment and thereof poverty problem is virtually chronic in South Africa, and worsened by the imposition of the GEAR, which prioriotised the fiscus over the needs of the majority of poor people. Instead of strictly reducing government’s deficit and achieving fiscal stability, GEAR also laid lots of jobs through retrenchments that resulted from commercialisation/privatisation of State-Owned Enterprises and under-sizing of the public service, which were until then, the most suitable providers of quality and sustainable employment.

Whilst we cannot celebrate the poverty and unemployment challenges that characterise the masses of our people, we should really discuss what constitutes the betterment of life in the post democratic dispensation; so that we can all climb on rooftops and proclaim that “Today is Better than Yesterday”. Notably, National Treasury is currently in a correct and long overdue discussion about South Africa’s poverty line, yet the currently government endorsed statistics point to the fact that more than 40% of South Africa’s population lives below the poverty line (less than R3000 per annum) , mainly due to lack of sustainable income. The question is whether with the plausible improvement the President noted in StatsSA Community Survey 2007 are worth celebrating in the background of the massive challenges of poverty and unemployment that characterise South African society.

In 2006, government introduced ASGISA as a set of interventions to economic growth constraints. If these constraints are addressed, ASGISA presupposed that government and society in large will be able to meet the social objectives. Consistent with GEAR’s neo-liberal ideological underpinning, ASGISA asserts,

“Government's investigations, supported by some independent research, indicate that the growth rate needed for us to achieve our social objectives is around 5% on average between 2004 and 2014. Realistically assessing the capabilities of the economy and the international environment, we have set a two-phase target. In the first phase, between 2005 and 2009, we seek an annual growth rate that averages 4,5% or higher. In the second phase, between 2010 and 2014, we seek an average growth rate of at least 6% of GDP. In addition to these growth rates, our social objectives require us to improve the environment and opportunities for more labour-absorbing economic activities. More broadly, we need to ensure that the fruits of growth are shared in such a way that poverty comes as close as possible to being eliminated, and that the severe inequalities that still plague our country are further reduced” (ASGISA, 2006).

These presuppositions directly contradict the underlying principles of the Ready to Govern and the RDP, and reflect an even deeper digression from the Freedom Charter principles of socialised ownership of the means of production. Now, the government investigations, supported by independent research essentially discovered that South African economy should first grow at rates around 5% between 2004 and 2014 in order of government to meet its social objectives (redistribute and reconstruct). ASGISA says that we need to ensure that the fruits of growth are shared, and this principally means that you grow the economy first and share the fruits later. To grow the economy, you should dedicate your energy towards reducing the cost of doing big business through getting your macro economics right, production of skills, opening of new potentially apocalyptic markets (bio-fuels), addressing government co-ordination, and various other useful interventions.

Now as early as 1998, the SACP had diagnosed the rightward shift in South Africa’s economic planning and perspectives, a phenomenon which is presently christened the “1996 Class Project”. In a 1998 assessment of South Africa’s democracy, the SACP noted:

“We believe that the budget deficit reduction targets are arbitrary, based as they are on macro-economic models derived from a largely unreconstructed Reserve Bank. GEAR embodies, in its core fiscal and monetary policies, a neo-liberal approach that is at variance with our reconstruction and development objectives. Much of GEAR, and indeed much of government's evolving economic policy has shifted progressively away from ANC economic policy in the first half of the 1990s, which underlined the interconnectedness of growth and development, which envisaged a major emphasis on growth led by domestic and regional infrastructural development. More and more, there has been a shift towards the assumptions of an export-led growth, based on the myth that deregulation and liberalisation, more or less on their own, will make the South African economy "globally competitive ".

Decrying the effects of GEAR in 1998, the SACP noted the “Lack of consistency in building a strong, developmental state - although the official policy of government and of the alliance is that the state should play an active and developmental role in the economy, in practice this strategic standpoint is often not pursued. "Privatisation" is still often proclaimed to be official government policy and an end in itself, notwithstanding the National Framework Accord on the Restructuring of State Assets. The transformation of the public sector is often reduced to a narrow cost-cutting, budget-deficit reduction exercise. And the role of the state in the economy often amounts to little more than pleas to the private sector ”.

Overall, the difference between GEAR and the RDP is premised on the observation that the RDP intended to pursue growth and development through reconstruction and redistribution, whilst GEAR essentially pursued growth in order to realise employment, redistribution and reconstruction. Now, in our celebration of the reality that statistics say the lives of our people have improved, we should not be blinded to believe that the GEAR formula to economic reconstruction is suitable—it is objectively not, and this is reflected in the levels of unemployment and widening wealth gap between the rich and the poor. We really cannot Giya for GEAR. Besides, we should treat reliable statistics consistently, even when they point to the levels of poverty and unemployment. An issue that perhaps requires a thorough investigation is: What were we capable of achieving in the first 13 years of democracy, which we did not achieve?

Nyiko Floyd Shivambu
Young Communist League National Committee Member


REFERENCE LIST:

• ANC Department of Economic Policy: Discussion document on economic policy, September 1990.
• African National Congress, Economic Transformation for a National Democratic Society, 52nd National Congress Discussion Document, February 2007.
• African National Congress Youth League, ANC Youth League Response to the Strategy and Tactics, May 2007.
• Cronin. J. Post-Apartheid South Africa: A Reply to John S. Saul, Monthly Review 52, no. 9, January 2001
• Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), Development Report 2005: Overcoming development in South Africa’s second economy, 2005.
• Lagassick, South African Political Economy, Centre for Civil Society, Colloquium on the Economy, Society and Nature, 2006.
• Pollin, R. Epstein, G. Heintz, J. and Ndikumana, L. An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York, 2006
• RDP documents—click this link: http://www.anc.org.za/rdp/index.html
• ASGISA document: http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/briefings/asgibackground.pdf
• For GEAR document: http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/1996/gear.pdf

Floeytry... Poetry According to Floyd

September as a Heritage Month in South Africa has been dedicated to Poetry. In commemoration of our heritage, we re-publish the Poetry earlier published in the blog. They are not for comment.

The Juxtaposed Song of Azania

On this street
hand to mouth is their psalm
Ignorance their rhyme
and hunger their lullaby
yet in MISERABLE woebegone faces they sing
we will vote, and they, provide
cross the street
the dull lyrics fade
and dulcet ones begin
anguish’s is monotonous
destitution is dull tune
better sing richness and delight
serenade treasure
and hum majesty
then the streets intersect
at least they meet somewhere
for same leaders they cheer
common vote they cast
and in one name they are called
South Africans!
Damn!


Contemporary Azanian Child

A child of about just over teen years
Strolling the streets of Jozi
Empty stomach, empty handed
Only 5 bucks for a taxi home
Home being a single roomed shack in township house backyard
A child full of unattainable ambitions
‘Wish I could own a BMW or Benza’
‘Wish I could buy a house in sub-urban Jozi’
‘Wish I could dine and wine from silver plates and cups’
‘Wish I could learn how to use silver spoons, forks and knives’
‘Wish I could wear Guess what? Palazollo pitti and fake chuck Taylor sneakers’
‘Wish I could jol a well-shaped, facially gifted lover with class’
‘Wish I could buy chicken feet to feed my empty baseless belly’
And also wish to get another 5 bucks for a taxi to Jozi
‘Maybe I will get a job’
Damn!

Discussing the ANC Strategy and Tactics

Discussing the Strategy and Tactics

The essence of any revolutionary struggle is organisationally articulated through strategy and tactics, comprising the underpinning programmatic and methodological pillars guiding and sustaining revolutionary movements. It is against this background that the African National Congress has since 1912 had a set of tactics and a strategy, documented or otherwise. It was only in 1969 that the ANC Strategy and Tactics was written to fulfill the following tasks: summarise the strategic objective; identify and set out strategic and tactical methods towards the strategic objective; analyse the balance force; outline and define the motive forces and identify who the enemies of the revolutionary movement are. At formation, the central strategic objective in the ANC has been creation of a non-racial South Africa, which historically evolved to recognise that creation of a non-racial society could not be separated from a concurrent resolution the class contradictions and patriarchy—characteristic of South Africa’s Colonialism of a Special Type.

Now, the first on paper Strategy and Tactics was adopted in the First National Consultative Conference of the ANC in Tanzania, Morogoro in 1969. This was in the midst of decolonisation of Africa and rising strength of the Socialist forces worldwide. Recognising and somewhat inspired by the regional and global phenomena, the 1969 Strategy and Tactics was prologued by an observation that “the struggle of the oppressed people of South Africa is taking place within an international context of transition to the Socialist system, of the break­down of the colonial system as a result of national liberation and socialist revolutions, and the fight for social and economic progress by the people of the whole world” (S&T, 1969).

The 1969 Strategy and Tactics made what became the core of the revolutionary and distinct character of the national liberation movement in South Africa, the fact that “In our country - more than in any other part of the oppressed world - it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole… It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy” (S&T, 1969). The Strategic Objective was then summed up as “the complete political and economic emancipation of all our people and the constitution of a society which accords with the basic pro-visions of our programme - the Freedom Charter” (S&T, 1969)

The African National Congress was guided by these observations in the period post 1969--such that when analysing the Nature of South African Ruling Class in the Second National Consultative Conference in Kabwe in 1985, there was no question that the enemy of the National democratic Revolution is white monopoly capital. This was mainly premised on the historical recognition that national oppression and its consequences was a predominant feature, whilst class exploitation was a primary component of the Colonialism of a Special Type. This summation was understood in the context that “the aims of our National Democratic Revolution will only be fully realised with the construction of a social order in which all the historic consequences of national oppression and its FOUNDATION, economic exploitation will be liquidated” (Politico-Military Strategy Commission Report, 1979; emphasis added).

Now, the central focus of Kabwe Conference was the nature of the South African ruling class; wherein there was no doubt that white monopoly capital constitutes the primary enemy of the progressive forces of change. It is instructive to note that a Draft Strategy and Tactics was presented in the Kabwe Conference and could not be adopted due to certain omissions in the Draft. Conference then mandated a Drafting Committee composed of the National Executive Committee and the Politico-Military Council to revise and strengthen the Draft S&T presented to Conference. Vivid in the omissions that Conference noted included were the role of the working class and emergence of the trade unions; the Bantustans and their changing nature; programme of action for rural areas outside the Bantustans; and the revolutionary alliance (Kabwe S&T Resolution, 1985). Whilst not avowed, the 1969 Strategy and Tactics remained the telescope and guide of the ANC post Kabwe Conference, as the Draft was not adopted.

The 48th National Congress of the ANC in 1991 did not make a substantive analysis of the balance of forces (which had substantially shifted with the collapse of the Socialist forces, symbolised by the fall of the Soviet Union), yet noted in the Strategy and Tactics resolution that despite the repeal of some apartheid laws, “the basic political, social, gender and economic relations of oppression and exploitation [remained] intact” (S&T Resolution, 1991). The 48th Congress recommitted to the elimination of apartheid and creation of a united, democratic nonracial and nonsexist state. Key features of the 1991 S&T resolution encapsulated a commitment to “strengthening of the tripartite alliance of the ANC, SACP and COSATU, as a fighting force at national, regional and local levels” and opened up for negotiations “in the context of intensified struggle on all fronts and in combination with other forms of struggle” (S&T Resolution, 1991).

An overall redraft of the ANC S&T was presented and adopted at the 1997 50th Congress of the ANC in Mafikeng. Certainly there was an unquestionable need for a new Strategy and Tactics to be adopted due to fundamental political changes that ensued, with South Africa entering the new millennium having achieved formal political liberation. In 1997, an honest and correct acknowledgment was made, diametrically different from the 1969 S&T prologue, that the defeat and end of apartheid “take place in a world in which the system of capitalism enjoys dominant sway over virtually the entire globe”… yet in “a world too in which the agenda of the working people and developing nations can find creative expression in pursuit of a humane, just and equitable world order” (S&T, 1997).

Recognising this reality, the 1997 S&T maintained that the essence of the NDR remained the liberation of Africans in particular and black people in general from political and economic bondage. Consistent with the 1969 revolutionary and distinct recognition, the 1997 S&T noted that “The symbiotic link between capitalism and national oppression in our country, and the stupendous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few monopolies therefore render trite the vainglorious declaration that national oppression and its social consequences can be resolved by formal democracy underpinned by market forces to which all should kneel in the prayer: `everyone for himself and the Devil takes the hindmost!'

The 1997 Strategy and Tactics contextualised the working class leadership of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR)… and said “South African capitalism gave birth to a collective of black workers whose class position and social existence placed it at the head of the struggle for freedom. By dint of its activism and organisation, this class won the respect of all the other motive forces as the leader of the NDR.” (S&T, 1997). The 1997 Strategy and Tactics went further to reward and inaugurate the emerging black bourgeoisie as a motive force for fundamental change, and asserted that “in the overall, the rising black bourgeoisie and middle strata are objectively important motive forces of transformation whose interests coincide with at least the immediate interests of the majority” (S&T, 1997). Vivid in the 1997 S&T was a reaffirmation of the Alliance, stating that the “Tripartite Alliance is therefore not a matter of sentiment, but an organisational expression of the common purpose and unity in action that these forces share, and continue jointly to define and redefine in the course of undertaking the tasks of the NDR” (S&T, 1997).

Proclaiming People’s Power in Action in 2002, the 51st National Conference of the ANC in Stellenbosch retained the key observations and outlining of strategic and tactical paths towards resolution of the class, gender and national contradictions; and creation of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and united South Africa. The 2002 Conference appended an explanatory note (in the form of a Preface) to the Strategy and Tactics adopted in 1997, and emphasised that although it aided in defining the conjecture then, the whole S&T had to be read for a thorough comprehension of the tasks and pathways towards the Freedom Charter envisaged society; what constituted possible threats; and what the global and national objective environment was.

Somewhat more concrete and definitive of the envisaged society, the Draft Strategy and Tactics 2007 represents a conceptual divergence from what previous Strategy and Tactics documents outlined. The Draft S&T argues that to resolve the gender, class and national contradictions, we need to construct a National Democratic Society. The envisaged National Democratic Society does not seek to radically transform Property relations, but seek to mobilise all forces (including the hitherto contradictory forces) towards a common developmental goal. The Draft S&T 2007 argues that in constructing a National Democratic Society, the revolutionary movement should appreciate the reality that domestically, the balance of forces, are in favour of the forces of change. Caution should however be exercised in the conscious construction of an NDS due to existence of a Hyper Power and predominance of capitalism.

Vividly absent in the Draft Strategy and Tactics 2007 is creation of a society envisaged in the Freedom Charter (wherein mineral wealth beneath the soil, monopoly industry and banks shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole) and substantiation of the alliance as an organ of change and “organisational expression of the common purpose and unity in action that [the alliance] share, and continue jointly to define and redefine in the course of undertaking the tasks of the NDR”. The Draft S&T intends to create a class society disobedient of the social scientific observations that in any class society, contradictions between the ruling and the ruled class are inherent. Policy Conference’s emphasis was that surely monopoly capital cannot be an ally in the construction of an NDS and that the Freedom Charter remains our Strategic Objective, whilst retaining the ANC as a centre that holds.

SA Developmental State?

The myth of a South African Developmental State

Nyiko Floyd Shivambu

Acknowledging the massive setbacks and crisis of unemployment and poverty that characterise of the 13 years of democratic dispensation in South Africa, the new mantra in the African National Congress and government is that of building of a Developmental State. The ANC Policy Conference discussion document on economic transformation and its Draft Strategy and Tactics stand by the ultimate objective of building a development state, which supposedly requires an efficient a market as possible.

Despite an array of conceptualisations on what a developmental state is or should be; there are consistent elements that reappear in its definition. The consistent elements include the reality that firstly, a developmental state should have the necessary structural capacity to drive change, secondly, it should have the ideology of development backed by a mass movement and thirdly, the capacity to navigate through and direct contradicting class forces in society. A developmental state should in character have relative autonomy from capital and labour in order to suppress sectoral and narrow class interests in favour of national development objectives.

A developmental state should be able to manage and direct capital as well as labour in the interests of national development. The ANC economic transformation discussion document observes the reality that “in many international cases, the developmental state’s strategic capacity has been fostered in the context of a high degree of integration between business and government… [and] a powerful and dominating state apparatus, where democratic rights are often sacrificed at the altar of developmental priorities”. (ANC, 2007: 9).

Suppression of democratic rights of both capitalists and labour constituted the most vital elementary key to success of the archetypical developmental states in East Asia (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan). The historical examples that the South Korean State imprisoned all capitalists in order to foster and coerce them towards national development objectives and priorities illustrates that the liberal democratic rights and freedom were not priority over development objectives. Attached to a massive industrialisation process, the East Asian tigers came to realise high levels of economic growth and development and capital accumulation never seen in the 20th century.

Imperatively, it is vital to note that in East Asia before the developmental state, there was no strong presence of multinational monopoly capital and society was almost completely homogenous, with a relative political stability brought forth by the post World War II stability. The patterns of exploitation did not give rise to strong labour movement, capable of questioning the actions of the State. The national bourgeoisie in those countries was then subjected to national developmental objectives through consensus and repression, where consensus could not work.

The East Asian Developmental States succeeded in a bi-polar global environment and guaranteed support of the capitalist polar led by the World War II triumphant United States. The influence of institutionalised imperialism in the form of World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation was at configuration, and therefore virtually non-existent. Neo-liberalism was not a global compulsive reality in the formation of developmental states in East Asia.

Now, the primary tenets of ANC economic transformation discussion document and the Draft Strategy and Tactics seem to suggest that the South African developmental state should be constructed within, consistent with and integrated into the current neo-liberal global economy. Part of what is envisioned in the South African developmental state is “an economy that is connected to the world, benefiting from the vibrant trade with North and South, in a fair and equitable global trade regime…” (ANC, 2007: 3). Besides, this envisaged State, “requires a market that is as efficient as possible, a market that is shorn of the racial and gender exclusions that characterised apartheid colonialism and freed from the barriers of entry and competition that the economy endured under colonial capitalism” (ANC, 2007: 9).

With a strong multinational monopoly capital, lack of social cohesion due to apartheid capitalism, institutionalised imperialism, and a strong labour movement, the dream to build a developmental state in South Africa shall remain a dream. The dream will permanently be such, unless social relations are fundamentally altered through discontinuation of private ownership of the key means of production, logistics, transport infrastructure, and energy production. The Freedom Charter envisaged such sort of a developmental state by asserting that “the mineral wealth beneath the soil, banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; and all other industry controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people”.

When discussing a developmental state in the coming policy conference, ANC members should be reminded that in South Africa, there is a very strong white monopoly, multinational and unpatriotic capital with interests wider than creation of jobs and poverty reduction. Members of the ANC should remember that the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU) exists as a revolutionary labour movement, with an unforeseeable possibility of capitulation to brutal exploitation, whatsoever is the justification. A South African developmental state, which will not be in control of the key means of production, logistics, transport infrastructure, and energy production, is a myth.

YL Leftwards

The ANC Youth League indicating Left

The recent statements and pronouncements by the African National Congress Youth League (ANC YL) should be given the consideration they deserve in the youth movement. At formation, the Youth League was the first to accept Colonialism of a Special Type characterisation of South African colonial oppression, and essentially recognised the reality that in South Africa, national oppression, patriarchy and class exploitation are inseparable. This was characteristic of the Youth League, which influenced and played a central role in the Defiance Campaign, which indisputably invigorated the ANC into a revolutionary National Liberation Movement.

Post Defiance Campaign, the ANC Youth League was characterised by robust and concerted mass campaigns and ideological dispositions, which were predominantly Left orientated. With the emergence of democracy, the ANC Youth League militancy was somewhat shelved, whilst its outlook was associated with the emergent, yet predominant bourgeois philosophising of poverty, inequality and poverty in South Africa, clad in the seize the opportunities of democracy rhetoric. The Youth League was silent on critical policy and ideological issues in the ANC and the broader Mass Democratic Movement, and lamentably rushed in defence of the neo-liberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) adopted by government in 1996, as workers raised fists against privatisation.

Notable however, are recent pronouncements of the ANC Youth League on vital ideological questions, which the ANC had somewhat abandoned or rhetorically flashed to hide the strategic shift characteristic of the ANC post the democratic breakthrough. The ANC Youth 2007 May Day statement correctly characterised the alliance and emphasised inter alia, “the evolution of apartheid capitalism dialectically unified the struggling masses of our people, hence the alliance amongst the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the workers movement, the latter now represented by COSATU. The alliance was therefore not a marriage of idealism but was born out of the realities that faced our people, that they were oppressed as a race and as a class”.

Post 1994, the class perspective had in the ANC been submerged under the rhetoric of national unity, deracialisation, building a modern economy, resolving the national grievance. Largely, this was placed in contradiction to the resolution of the class contradiction, which is historically understood as the primary contradiction to be resolved by realisation of the Freedom Charter assertions. This historical assessment was made quite buoyantly in the ANC Strategy & Tactics, adopted by the first National Consultative Conference in Tanzania, 1969, “In our country - more than in any other part of the oppressed world - it is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the land to the people as a whole. It is therefore a fundamental feature of our strategy that victory must embrace more than formal political democracy”.

Summarising its observations on the 2007 ANC Draft Strategy and Tactics, due for adoption /rejection in the 52nd National Congress, the Youth League notes “The present draft does not make a clear analysis of the evolution of the strategy and tactics with regards to the role of the ANC, and as such it makes fundamental distortions, through omission, on the ideological disposition of the ANC. The document is very quiet about the role of monopoly capital which has always been characterized as the enemy of the revolution”. The very correct assertion by the Youth League that monopoly capital should still be viewed as the liberation movements’ strategic enemy is not very far from the observation in COSATU House (SACP, COSATU and the YCL) that a new class consensus of the elite had emerged, seeking to restore capitalist profitability and consolidation of the capitalist system, whilst in the first ten years of democracy, the biggest beneficiary of our democracy has been white monopoly capital—our strategic enemy.

With certain levels of ideological inconsistencies, the overtures and observations of the ANC Youth League should really be appreciated and consolidated by all revolutionary movements in the alliance and the ANC in particular in ensuring that the strategic vision and role of the ANC is not permanently bourgeoisified and governmentalised. Possibilities of ossifying the bourgeoisification and governmentalisation of the ANC are very high, and this is reflected, amongst others, in the propositions made in the 2005 National General Council and some of the Policy discussions documents for the 52nd National Congress. Progressive forces should unite to recapture the ANC from elements, which seek to distort its historical mission, that of liberation of Africans in particular and blacks in general through resolution of the class, national and gender contradictions.

Floyd Shivambu

SA Media

Some Lessons from Sunday Newspapers

Floyd Shivambu

South African media has in the past few months been correctly blamed within South African society, particularly as it relates to the so-called succession debate in the African National Congress and Tripartite Alliance as a whole. There is a variety of media creations and constructions, which are non-existent in the real world. South African Media sought to redefine South African society through perspectives and information from mainly faceless sources, who would purportedly sneak out of formal political structures to connive with scribes for whatever reason. This was largely reflected in Sunday Newspapers, infamous for their character assassinations and elevation of imaginations to scriptural reality. Sunday Newspapers have perfectly reflected the correct Left theoretical observation that in a capitalist society, media is a non-cohesive force with a primary role to re-inscribe the ideas of the ruling class.

Noting this background, it is vital to note particularly the perspectives of Sunday Newspapers comments/editorials on the 15th of April 2007. The comments/editorials of Sunday Times, City Press and Sowetan Sunday World somewhat defied their primary role of re-inscribing the ideas of the ruling class. As a very rare practice, the Newspapers identified, questioned and deplored the South African mode of capitalist accumulation post apartheid. The Sunday Times’ Editor, Mondli Makhanya observes after his long diatribe on Danisa Baloyi:
“Elected representatives are getting involved in business, clearly in violation of the ethos that those who enter public service are supposed to espouse. Public servants ignore conflict-of-interest directives and sign deals every other day. The ruling party abuses its control of the levers of state and ensures that friendly businessmen get contracts in parastatals, government departments and municipalities. Businessmen substitute hard work with palm-greasing”.

Makhanya’s counterpart in City Press, Khatu Mamaila deplores Trevor Manuel for speaking the long overdue and obvious sentiments on Black Economic Empowerment, and correctly notes:
The first point to make is that while the emerging black bourgeoisie is used as a punching bag for all BEE criticisms, the truth is that the real beneficiaries of BEE are banks, which are predominantly white entities. A person given a stake in a company in order to get the BEE figures right is unlikely to embark on any action that may militate against the interests of his benefactors. It is not surprising to find a black person suddenly speaking on behalf of the mining giants against royalties on revenue. There is a popular myth that BEE was meant to benefit the black majority. The truth is that BEE is achieving exactly what its designers sought – co-opting the black revolutionary intelligentsia to safeguard the interests of capital. It should not be surprising that many of the beneficiaries have strong political connections with the ruling ANC. The reason every big company desperately wants to find a partner who is also a big shot in the ANC is because of what political analyst Moeletsi Mbeki describes as insurance. If, for instance, the ANC’s national executive committee is dominated by people who handsomely benefit from the windfalls of BEE, it is unlikely the same people will advance policies that will reverse their gains. Big business knew of their polecat status in the eyes of the ANC and the broad liberation movement at the rendezvous of freedom. They also knew of ideals to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy, as articulated in the Freedom Charter. They realised they needed to adapt or face extinction. They opted for adaptation. They offered the revolutionaries of yesteryear a piece of the pie, turning them into moderates who have become staunch defenders of the system. Capitalism is in safe hands. Its lily-white face has been darkened. The masses live in hope that they too will one day benefit. People like Manuel continue to keep the hope alive.

Stressing Maimala’s observations, the Sowetan Sunday World Editor says:
“Manuel says it (that BEE has benefited very few black elites) as if his statement were original, leaving the impression that a few more black cats need to become millionaires before any concrete steps will be taken to level the playing field. But BEE has done more than make a few coconuts rich, it has in fact morally bankrupted our struggle”.

These observations from Sunday Newspapers are reflective of what South African capitalist society has become. There is perhaps a need for more emphasis that the delusion that capitalism can ever restore morals, improve the poor’s living conditions and build a nation is a delusion. Capitalism in South Africa impoverished majority of the population the revolutionary struggles sought to liberate, and will for years to come, if ownership of production means is not fundamentally altered. Maybe Sunday Newspapers have a sense of what is happening, and not trapped in some planet of imaginations as I thought.