Post by Parenti on Dec 31, 2007 21:31:02 GMT -5
In these new essays Manning Marable addressed the growing inequality that threatens post apartheid South Africa.
“South Africa in Crisis” Part One of a Two-Part Series
ALONG THE COLOR LINE — NOVEMBER 2007
I was recently invited to deliver the commencement address at the School of Business, University of Wittswatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. That such an event, a black progressive scholar giving the graduation lecture at a white elite university, would have been unimaginable twenty years ago under the white minority regime called apartheid, goes without saying. What is more complicated, however, is what has transpired since Nelson Mandela’s presidential victory in 1994, which led South Africa into a new democracy. Because unfortunately, for millions of mostly black and poor people, the demise of apartheid has not translated into a better life.
To much the world since its transition to democracy, South Africa’s and especially its robust economy, represents a remarkable success story. In 2005, the South African Stock Exchange recorded a return of 43 percent, which was the third highest percentage of growth in the world. South Africa’s stock exchange grew at a pace nearly 400 percent higher than that of other African countries.
The growth of capital markets has also generated a new class of South African millionaires. According to the 2006 World Wealth Report, which defines “millionaires” as holding more than one million (US) dollars in financial assets, excluding their primary residences, South Africa’s dollar-millionaires grew by nearly 16 percent in 2005, to 42, 883 individuals. South Africa is producing millionaires at a faster rate than Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Increasingly, class rather than race, is becoming of greater significance in how millions of South Africans describe themselves and their future social mobility. Some interesting data on class identity in this regard has been compiled by FutureFact, a South African research group that began in 1998. In 2006, slightly less than one-half of all South Africans surveyed defined themselves as “middle-class.” Only one-fourth of those surveyed, however, described their own parents as “middle-class.” Roughly one-third of South Africans claimed to belong “to a higher social class than their parents.”
Since the demise of apartheid, the racial composition of both the middle classes and professional/managerial elite has markedly changed. Back in 1991, according to FutureFact, the upper ten percent of South Africa’s income earners was virtually all white. By 2005, one-quarter of the top ten percent income earners was black.
Despite the “business-friendly” approach of the Mbeki government, most South African-based corporations and the new class of dollar-millionaires show little loyalty to their native land, by investing the majority of their profits outside the country. The Congress of South African Trade Unions has even described the widespread failure by local businesses to invest in the economy as an “investment strike.”
As journalist William Mervin Gumede recently observed in his 2007 study of Thabo Mbeki: “Naively, Mbeki and ANC strategists thought that the implementation of a liberal economy would somehow develop a greater social conscience in the business community … Productivity was up and profits were the highest they’d been in many years. But instead of appreciation, the government received constant complaints from business about ‘excessive’ demands to contribute to development programmes.” Banks implemented their “investment strike” through discriminatory policies of “redlining”, refusing to loan money to nonwhites buying homes either in black townships, or in formerly all-white suburbs. A November 2006 study by the World Bank established that two-thirds of South Africa’s one million black women entrepreneurs were “redlined” by banks, having absolutely no access to loans. Despite affirmative action reforms, the South African corporate establishment continues to be overwhelmingly white. Ninety-eight percent of the directors of corporations listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are white.
There indeed have been “winners” and “losers” in the new South African economy, since 1994. The major corporations, most of which actively functioned under the former apartheid regime, have clearly benefited from the government’s privatization program, the tax concessions and the decline in inflation. An aspiring black entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, and a growing black professional, administrative and managerial class have also profited. Even within a section of the working class – fulltime, permanent workers, most of whom are unionized – their real wages rose substantially in the decade following 1994.
The “losers” have been millions of South Africans who lacked the education, skills and material resources to make the adjustment to the nation’s neoliberal economy. By 2001 the official unemployment rate stood at 26 percent, and it continued to climb. A growing number of black workers found themselves trapped between the unemployed on one side, and skilled unionized workers on the other. Temporary, part-time, and contractual labor now comprises the majority of South Africa’s black working class labor force. These workers earn substantially less than unionized employees, and lack the protections and benefits of unionization.
The African National Congress government of Thabo Mbeki has done relatively little to address the growing gap of inequality and poverty experienced by millions of blacks, who sacrificed greatly to achieve their victory over apartheid. The fundamental question is how long will poor and working class black South Africans continue to wait before they experience the long-awaited freedom they’ve been promised.
South Africa in Crisis” Part Two of a Two-Part Series
ALONG THE COLOR LINE — NOVEMBER 2007
Within several weeks, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) will hold a national convention to select the successor to South African President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki has complicated the contest by trying to pull a “Putin” – to hold onto power by getting himself elected Chairman of the ANC. Through his position as party boss, he could handpick a “weak” president, thus continuing to exercise real power.
What’s really at stake, however, is not which personality occupies South Africa’s presidency, but whether the ANC will finally address the looming crisis of millions of black poor people throughout the country. Despite thirteen years since the demise of white minority rule, the economic conditions for millions of Africans continues to be terrible.
South Africa today has two, distinctive economies, separated by a vast chasm that is partially the by-product of its unique racial history. The first economy is fully integrated into the global economy. At the national level, government programs such as the “Growth, Employment and Redistribution Program” (GEAR) have been efforts to reject Keynesian or government-dominated redistributive and social services programs, for neoliberal, private sector-oriented initiatives. The “first economy” is aggressively market-oriented, and has a growing black elite.
But South Africa’s “second economy” still remains largely outside of the prosperity and affluence of the first. According to the 1996 census, the poorest 40 percent of South Africa’s population received less than three percent of the national income. By comparison, the upper 10 percent of South Africa’s population earn about one-half of the nation’s total income annually. One in five urban households as of 2002 had no electricity. One in four had no running water.
Democratic institutions cannot be sustained, or survive, where there are such vast disparities of wealth and income. When millions of poor people are confronted with the bleak spectre of choosing between paying for their food, clothing and medicines vs. paying for their electricity and water bills, they will inevitably question what social and moral responsibility government has to provide basic services to those who are truly disadvantaged.
The South African government has responded to the crisis of poverty in the second economy by establishing major initiatives, such as the broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) codes, which are designed at enhancing human resources and skills development of workers, and promoting affirmative action hiring and the growth of enterprise-development among blacks, women, rural communities, and individuals with disabilities. Private companies that want to do business with the government, such as providing goods and services, must be rated and certified annually that they have adhered to the BEE codes. There’s no question that Black Empowerment initiatives have been largely responsible for greatly expanded the black middle class, and a black elite within South Africa over the past decade.
But what such reforms have not done is to address the deep alienation and growing resistance among the millions of poor South Africans to mass evictions, water cut-offs, or the widespread disconnection of electricity. So in the black township of Soweto, by 2002, there was the development of a Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, which launched “Operation Khanyisa”, reconnecting electricity to poor residents’ homes. In the Cape Town black township of Khayelitsha, community activists have challenged the mass evictions of poor people from their homes by banks, by returning people to their houses. Among the permanently unemployed and casual workers in the townships, a culture of angry resistance is growing.
One of the most enduring legacies of the apartheid regime was the racial segregation of land tenure and occupancy. Millions of landless black peasants and farmworkers had hoped that democracy would usher in a fundamental redistribution of rural land. The inaction of the ANC led by 2001 to the emergence of dozens of nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) across South Africa’s rural districts, fighting against privatization and for land rights.
These smaller movements coalesced at the August-September 2001 World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, culminating in the “Landless People’s Movement” (LPM). The LPM as a social protest movement contains two broad currents. One tendency is largely pragmatic and oriented toward negotiations with the ANC government to achieve land reforms. A second tendency is characterized by its militancy and spontaneity. For example, in 2001-2002 the LPM took up the struggles of poor Gauteng residents living in informal settlements who were being faced with evictions.
Is a “second revolution” now necessary, to fulfill the promises of economic fairness and workers’ rights in South Africa? As the ANC decides who will succeed Thabo Mbeki, it may also be determining whether it can finally deliver on the promises of social and economic justice it once made many years ago to the oppressed.
“South Africa in Crisis” Part One of a Two-Part Series
ALONG THE COLOR LINE — NOVEMBER 2007
I was recently invited to deliver the commencement address at the School of Business, University of Wittswatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. That such an event, a black progressive scholar giving the graduation lecture at a white elite university, would have been unimaginable twenty years ago under the white minority regime called apartheid, goes without saying. What is more complicated, however, is what has transpired since Nelson Mandela’s presidential victory in 1994, which led South Africa into a new democracy. Because unfortunately, for millions of mostly black and poor people, the demise of apartheid has not translated into a better life.
To much the world since its transition to democracy, South Africa’s and especially its robust economy, represents a remarkable success story. In 2005, the South African Stock Exchange recorded a return of 43 percent, which was the third highest percentage of growth in the world. South Africa’s stock exchange grew at a pace nearly 400 percent higher than that of other African countries.
The growth of capital markets has also generated a new class of South African millionaires. According to the 2006 World Wealth Report, which defines “millionaires” as holding more than one million (US) dollars in financial assets, excluding their primary residences, South Africa’s dollar-millionaires grew by nearly 16 percent in 2005, to 42, 883 individuals. South Africa is producing millionaires at a faster rate than Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Increasingly, class rather than race, is becoming of greater significance in how millions of South Africans describe themselves and their future social mobility. Some interesting data on class identity in this regard has been compiled by FutureFact, a South African research group that began in 1998. In 2006, slightly less than one-half of all South Africans surveyed defined themselves as “middle-class.” Only one-fourth of those surveyed, however, described their own parents as “middle-class.” Roughly one-third of South Africans claimed to belong “to a higher social class than their parents.”
Since the demise of apartheid, the racial composition of both the middle classes and professional/managerial elite has markedly changed. Back in 1991, according to FutureFact, the upper ten percent of South Africa’s income earners was virtually all white. By 2005, one-quarter of the top ten percent income earners was black.
Despite the “business-friendly” approach of the Mbeki government, most South African-based corporations and the new class of dollar-millionaires show little loyalty to their native land, by investing the majority of their profits outside the country. The Congress of South African Trade Unions has even described the widespread failure by local businesses to invest in the economy as an “investment strike.”
As journalist William Mervin Gumede recently observed in his 2007 study of Thabo Mbeki: “Naively, Mbeki and ANC strategists thought that the implementation of a liberal economy would somehow develop a greater social conscience in the business community … Productivity was up and profits were the highest they’d been in many years. But instead of appreciation, the government received constant complaints from business about ‘excessive’ demands to contribute to development programmes.” Banks implemented their “investment strike” through discriminatory policies of “redlining”, refusing to loan money to nonwhites buying homes either in black townships, or in formerly all-white suburbs. A November 2006 study by the World Bank established that two-thirds of South Africa’s one million black women entrepreneurs were “redlined” by banks, having absolutely no access to loans. Despite affirmative action reforms, the South African corporate establishment continues to be overwhelmingly white. Ninety-eight percent of the directors of corporations listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange are white.
There indeed have been “winners” and “losers” in the new South African economy, since 1994. The major corporations, most of which actively functioned under the former apartheid regime, have clearly benefited from the government’s privatization program, the tax concessions and the decline in inflation. An aspiring black entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, and a growing black professional, administrative and managerial class have also profited. Even within a section of the working class – fulltime, permanent workers, most of whom are unionized – their real wages rose substantially in the decade following 1994.
The “losers” have been millions of South Africans who lacked the education, skills and material resources to make the adjustment to the nation’s neoliberal economy. By 2001 the official unemployment rate stood at 26 percent, and it continued to climb. A growing number of black workers found themselves trapped between the unemployed on one side, and skilled unionized workers on the other. Temporary, part-time, and contractual labor now comprises the majority of South Africa’s black working class labor force. These workers earn substantially less than unionized employees, and lack the protections and benefits of unionization.
The African National Congress government of Thabo Mbeki has done relatively little to address the growing gap of inequality and poverty experienced by millions of blacks, who sacrificed greatly to achieve their victory over apartheid. The fundamental question is how long will poor and working class black South Africans continue to wait before they experience the long-awaited freedom they’ve been promised.
South Africa in Crisis” Part Two of a Two-Part Series
ALONG THE COLOR LINE — NOVEMBER 2007
Within several weeks, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) will hold a national convention to select the successor to South African President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki has complicated the contest by trying to pull a “Putin” – to hold onto power by getting himself elected Chairman of the ANC. Through his position as party boss, he could handpick a “weak” president, thus continuing to exercise real power.
What’s really at stake, however, is not which personality occupies South Africa’s presidency, but whether the ANC will finally address the looming crisis of millions of black poor people throughout the country. Despite thirteen years since the demise of white minority rule, the economic conditions for millions of Africans continues to be terrible.
South Africa today has two, distinctive economies, separated by a vast chasm that is partially the by-product of its unique racial history. The first economy is fully integrated into the global economy. At the national level, government programs such as the “Growth, Employment and Redistribution Program” (GEAR) have been efforts to reject Keynesian or government-dominated redistributive and social services programs, for neoliberal, private sector-oriented initiatives. The “first economy” is aggressively market-oriented, and has a growing black elite.
But South Africa’s “second economy” still remains largely outside of the prosperity and affluence of the first. According to the 1996 census, the poorest 40 percent of South Africa’s population received less than three percent of the national income. By comparison, the upper 10 percent of South Africa’s population earn about one-half of the nation’s total income annually. One in five urban households as of 2002 had no electricity. One in four had no running water.
Democratic institutions cannot be sustained, or survive, where there are such vast disparities of wealth and income. When millions of poor people are confronted with the bleak spectre of choosing between paying for their food, clothing and medicines vs. paying for their electricity and water bills, they will inevitably question what social and moral responsibility government has to provide basic services to those who are truly disadvantaged.
The South African government has responded to the crisis of poverty in the second economy by establishing major initiatives, such as the broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) codes, which are designed at enhancing human resources and skills development of workers, and promoting affirmative action hiring and the growth of enterprise-development among blacks, women, rural communities, and individuals with disabilities. Private companies that want to do business with the government, such as providing goods and services, must be rated and certified annually that they have adhered to the BEE codes. There’s no question that Black Empowerment initiatives have been largely responsible for greatly expanded the black middle class, and a black elite within South Africa over the past decade.
But what such reforms have not done is to address the deep alienation and growing resistance among the millions of poor South Africans to mass evictions, water cut-offs, or the widespread disconnection of electricity. So in the black township of Soweto, by 2002, there was the development of a Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, which launched “Operation Khanyisa”, reconnecting electricity to poor residents’ homes. In the Cape Town black township of Khayelitsha, community activists have challenged the mass evictions of poor people from their homes by banks, by returning people to their houses. Among the permanently unemployed and casual workers in the townships, a culture of angry resistance is growing.
One of the most enduring legacies of the apartheid regime was the racial segregation of land tenure and occupancy. Millions of landless black peasants and farmworkers had hoped that democracy would usher in a fundamental redistribution of rural land. The inaction of the ANC led by 2001 to the emergence of dozens of nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) across South Africa’s rural districts, fighting against privatization and for land rights.
These smaller movements coalesced at the August-September 2001 World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, culminating in the “Landless People’s Movement” (LPM). The LPM as a social protest movement contains two broad currents. One tendency is largely pragmatic and oriented toward negotiations with the ANC government to achieve land reforms. A second tendency is characterized by its militancy and spontaneity. For example, in 2001-2002 the LPM took up the struggles of poor Gauteng residents living in informal settlements who were being faced with evictions.
Is a “second revolution” now necessary, to fulfill the promises of economic fairness and workers’ rights in South Africa? As the ANC decides who will succeed Thabo Mbeki, it may also be determining whether it can finally deliver on the promises of social and economic justice it once made many years ago to the oppressed.